Space 1999 - The Drift
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: A collection of short stories and crossovers detailing Moonbase Alpha's journey through space, through horrors of all kinds, and wonders as they explore space trying to discover a new home.
1. Chapter 1 The First Warp

Foreword - Some time ago I wrote a separate foreword as an experiment, but while it didn't really work for me, it's given me the option to write a general disclaimer before I get cracking with my work.

I love Space 1999, and when I heard Big Finish was reviving it from scratch with the brilliant Mark Bonnar who voiced a Time Lord villain who was in the Big Finish productions, I was overjoyed. This is my homage to the series, a collection of short stories dealing with AU ideas, and as a warning, there will be crossovers at a later date, just to let you know.

If you have any ideas for any short stories, please tell me.

Enjoy.

\- For the first short story, it occurred to me how did the Moon get so far so quickly. And it struck me they might have discovered something to give them a push.

* * *

Space 1999.

The Drift.

"You must order an evacuation, Koenig!" Simmonds's impassioned shout was quickly becoming a hysterical yell, and he came very close to Moonbase Alpha's new commander, invading his personal space and looking like he was very close to grabbing hold of Koenig and shaking him.

It took all of John Koenig's self-discipline not to do one of two things, the first was to simply punch Simmonds in the face for shouting at him, and the second was to simply stand there and be yelled at. He did neither, not out of any real respect for Simmonds, but because he didn't want to hurt anyone and have it spread around the base that he had punched Simmonds in front of everyone in Main Mission.

The last thing he needed right now was everyone being too nervous to be around him out of fear he would punch them in the face, but Simmonds was coming dangerously close to pushing him that far.

Although judging from the manner in which several of the Main Mission crew were looking at the Commissioner of Space Command, Simmonds was not endearing himself to them, if he ever had, and a few looked like they wished they could just throw him out of an airlock, but Koenig was not going to allow _that _to happen, not on his watch.

"We can't evacuate, Commissioner," Koenig replied, stressing each word.

He wanted this argument to end. He and the rest of the command team needed to have an urgent meeting to help them survive now they had been blasted out of Earth orbit in order to get things done for their long term survival.

Alright, most of Alpha was in shambles, Main Mission included, but the sooner they had the meeting, the easier it would be for them to sort through the myriad of tasks affecting them. But first they needed to get Simmonds to calm down before things spiralled out of control, and the last thing Koenig needed was for things to go mad right now and worse than they were now.

"Why not?!" Simmonds was definitely going into hysteria.

Koenig closed his eyes for a second to count to ten before he opened his eyes patiently. "When the moon was blasted out of orbit," he began patiently while he held back the urge to add _because of all the nuclear __**garbage **__you and the rest of Space Command sent up here, _"it took a while before gravity stabilised before we could move. By that point, we were too far away from Earth."

"So?" Simmonds refused to get the picture. "We have the Eagles-."

Koenig couldn't believe Simmonds was this dense, but fortunately, Victor and Alan approached in support. "The Eagles are no good to us now, Commissioner," Alan interrupted, and John picked up a slight insolence, contempt in Alan's voice but he wasn't going to say a word.

Fortunately, Simmonds was too desperate to notice.

"Commissioner," Victor began in his cool manner as he began picking up on what Alan and John were saying, "when the moon was accelerating out of orbit like a rocket, Earth was already quite a distance so the Eagles can no longer cover the distance. There is nothing we can do any more than they can."

Simmonds looked like he was not getting it, or he was simply refusing to see reason. "I can't accept that," he argued, "Moonbase Alpha is continually sending out Eagles all the time-."

"Yeah," Alan said dryly, "between _Earth _and the _moon _when we were still in _orbit! _They are designed as short-range transporters._" _

"One of the reasons why we don't have a base on Mars or Venus or one of the Martian moons is because they are out of range most times, with Mars only coming into orbit once every two years although there is a brief window of opportunity to send expeditions to Mars and study it," Victor said solemnly while he held up a hand to calm Alan down so he could have his own say in this pointless debate, "but thanks to the orbit, our Eagles are simply incapable of reaching the Red Planet and its moons, that's why our Eagles don't fly to Mars."

John knew how Victor felt; the Professor had been one of the driving forces behind the foundation of a scientific research colony on Mars much like Moonbase Alpha, though on Mars there would be more o explore and to survey, but the problems with funding and the fact construction of such a base would need to take place incredibly quickly had put paid to those plans, although Victor had lived in hope for a long time it would happen, although now he would never see if such a Martian base was developed.

Victor carried on, clearly hoping the infusion of cool, calm logic would make the hysterical Commissioner who just couldn't cope with this kind of situation see sense. "Why do you think our long-range probe ships take so long to design and construct, Commissioner? You of all people who talk about budget costs and the time it takes for the work to go on, and the complaints when something goes on should know the reason why the probe ships take forever. It's because scientists and engineers need time to properly calculate the duration of the voyage, and it has to be done carefully in order to take into account the amounts of food, water, air, and fuel while also providing enough extra in case something goes on. Only a long haul spacecraft that is fully equipped to deal with the new gravitational anomalies created when our moon was torn out of orbit, that can detect and plot a flight path through those same anomalies, and has the power to reach an object that is getting further and further away from Earth, and has the power to get back, can rescue us. Earth doesn't have that technology."

Victor looked solemnly at Simmonds. Koenig knew without a doubt one of Victor's biggest headaches was the ever-ending lack of resources to properly explore space, and the lack of any real research into breaking the light barrier. There were several theories of travelling faster than light, but they were still theoretical because no-one was properly funding the work needed to find the clues, working out the particulars and taking both successes and failures before finally working out how to develop a faster than light drive.

Victor himself had several ideas on faster than light propulsion, but he'd never had the chance to work on them. With a faster than light engine, such as a warp engine or some kind of teleportation drive, they could reach the outer planets in the solar system which rendered things like probe ships which took forever obsolete. Actually, a probe ship with teleportation abilities would have the duration criteria needed to explore distant places before returning home.

They could definitely do with that type of power right about now.

Simmonds had a talent for ignoring problems and looking to the easiest solution. He had shown this irritating and irrational talent many times, the most recent had been when he had ignored the problems caused by the nuclear waste dumps on the moon and refusing to act until the last minute. Now he was ignoring most of what Victor was saying in favour of looking to something else in the scientists' explanation.

"What about the Meta Probe?" he asked. "That is a long duration spaceship. Surely it can reach us?"

"No, it can't, it was destroyed, remember?" Koenig snapped, starting to get truly irritated their points were being ignored. He was also frustrated this man who was supposed to be a Commissioner didn't seem to understand anything about space exploration and the problems that bogged down deep-space missions and was responsible for constantly denying funds to trying to rectify them, or taking the steps needed to rectify them. "It was destroyed along with the Space station."

"All the astronauts qualified to pilot that ship has either slipped into comas or died," Dr Helena Russell pointed out, her eyes turning down in sadness that they hadn't been able to properly diagnose the problem of the electromagnetic distortions which had burnt out the brains of the astronauts until it was too late.

Simmonds sent her a dark look, finding someone to blame. "If you had properly identified the problem, _Doctor," _he stressed the title which made Helena stiffen angrily before he turned to Victor, "and you, _Professor, _we may have had those astronauts and a chance to get home-."

Koenig had had enough. Pointing the finger wasn't going to help them, and at that moment his temper snapped.

"Simmonds, SHUT UP!" Koenig yelled and he grabbed hold of the politician's shoulders and spun him around, and he even shook the stunned Commissioner to make him wake up and see reality. "Pointing the blame is not going to help us now. Do you think I wanted us trapped on Alpha? Do you really think I would have announced we weren't even going to try to get home if I didn't think there was a chance? We are trapped here, and there is nothing we can do about it. In any case, the Meta Probe won't be able to catch up with us anyway because the Inter-planetary Space Station was knocked out of orbit, same as us. It was destroyed because it was too fragile to cope with being knocked out of orbit. Even if it wasn't and the Meta probe was still operational, they couldn't get us back. Earth _just doesn't have _the technology to get us back, not when we are moving further and further out of range; do you really think we'd still be here if that was the case? The Meta Probe was the _only _long-range ship in orbit, now its been knocked away as well and its pieces are now littering the space where the moon used to be, and there's no way it can be launched in time to get us back in time. All that talk about Space Command getting us back is not going to happen; all of them know it won't. They aren't going to help. Soon they are going to have to clean up the mess that was caused when we were torn out of orbit. We are on our own. You had better accept it."

Koenig let go of Simmonds, who was looking at him stunned that he'd even thought of touching him, but John didn't care. He was about to say something else when there was shaking all around them.

Helena looked around fearfully despite her attempts to maintain her professional calm. "What's going on now?" she asked.

Koenig ignored the question and turned to Kano. "Kano, check Computer," he ordered.

Kano nodded and went to his desk and checked while the shaking grew stronger and stronger. He shook his head in frustration. "I'm sorry, Commander. Computer isn't getting any reading."

Suddenly there was a jerk and everyone was knocked to the ground again, though it was far less stronger than the G-force they'd experienced when the Moon was blown out of Earth's orbit. Koenig squeezed his eyes shut when a series of bright lights flashed around him, but they soon subsided, and the tremendous pressure on his body faded as well and he was able to lift his head tiredly.

"Is everyone alright?" he asked aloud.

"Yes, Commander," he heard Paul say.

Koenig was relieved to hear others give positive affirmatives in Main Mission, and he clambered painfully to his feet. The force that had held him had given him the impression of being squeezed in a giant vice. From the looks of everyone around him, he could tell he wasn't alone.

"Check all section," Koenig ordered as he helped up someone who was lying on the floor and got them to their feet.

"John, you'd better come and see this," Victor called out, and everyone in the room heard the grim tone in the scientists' voice.

Koenig sighed and wondered what else had happened this time. He didn't have time for any more disasters. All he wanted was to check on the rest of the base, have a meeting that would help them shape their survival, and begin putting in plans to finding a new alternative place to live. Still, he walked over to where his old friend had gone. Victor had walked over to one of the viewports.

Victor glanced at him grimly and pointed. Koenig's gaze followed his finger. For a moment Koenig had no idea what he was meant to see, though he had expected to see the distant blue orb that was the planet of his birth, but as he looked-

"Where's Earth?" he asked in confusion when she realised he couldn't see where Earth was and he realised what Victor was getting at, unable to check his surprise so his voice carried over the whole of Main Mission but because he had his back to the others he didn't see their reactions.

Victor shrugged grimly. "Relative to where we are now, I don't know."

Koenig stared at him questioningly. "Do you have a theory?" he asked in a manner that said he did know Victor had an idea, but he wasn't going to say anything until he had proper proof.

"Only an idea, John," the scientist replied before he called over his shoulder. "Kano, get Computer to calculate our position, please."

"Yes, Professor," Kano said as he got to work. The computer technician had dozens of other tasks to conduct, but like everyone else, he was now curious about where they were relative to where they had been.

It took Kano two minutes to get the response from Computer and as he held up the reply slip. For a minute Kano was staring at the slip with disbelief, to the point of gaping.

"Kano, what is it? What does it say?" Koenig asked.

Kano was still looking at the slip with disbelief.

Alan walked over to his colleague and gently prised the piece of paper from his hands before he read it himself. Like Kano, it was clear he couldn't believe what he was reading. He looked up, his eyes full of disbelief. "Commander, Computer has discovered a star that was detected by the TITAN array about four years ago, when it was conducting a scan on the other side of the galaxy. We are only two light-years near to the star, according to Computer."

Koenig exhaled sharply as he heard the report. _No, it can't be-! _he tried to deny it, but he knew it couldn't be denied since Computer had run careful scans and they all knew it.

Redundantly and after licking his lips, Alan went on in order to hammer the point home. "We're on the other side of the galaxy, Commander."

"How is that possible so quickly?" Paul asked in a faint whisper that still carried in the suddenly quiet room as they processed what they had just heard.

"We were close to Earth… now we're here," Alan said, looking around himself, confused.

"A Space Warp," Tanya whispered as her mind remembered a scrap of knowledge she'd picked up and filed over the years. "We must have gone through a Space Warp."

It made sense.

Ever since the discovery of Black Holes, or Black Suns, rips in the fabric of space/time, many scientists had postulated the existence of a relative known as the wormhole, or the Space Warp. Not many scientists were even certain Space Warps even existed. Unlike black holes, they were virtually impossible to detect, but some scientists said they were not visible phenomena. It looked like they were right.

"There was a Space Warp on our very doorstep, only we never saw it," Koenig whispered as he looked around and sighed, running a hand through his hair as he tried to mentally sort through everything that was happening around him. So many things were happening at once it was virtually impossible for him to process it all.

"And it catapulted us to the other side of the galaxy," Helena said, her eyes glazed as she herself was trying to take everything in.

Kano had recovered from his surprise and now he was checking the Computer. "We are also picking up speed, Commander. The Space Warp must have increased our momentum."

Koenig walked over to the Computer desk and he leaned over Kano so he could see the controls and displays. Kano was right. They had picked up speed from where they were. "Keep an eye on the speed, Kano. Report if there are any increases or decreases."

Kano nodded as he leaned over the desk, but something occurred to him. "If we could go near one Space Warp and not detect it, we could encounter another burst of acceleration," he pointed out.

Koenig looked at him sharply but realised he was right.

* * *

"So far, our casualties were light," Helena was saying later during the meeting. "A few suffered a few bumps and concussions, but fortunately no deaths when we were broken out of orbit. The Space Warp just shook a few up a bit more, but that's about all. I'm going to be advising more physicals to make sure no-one suffers from any long term effects."

"Good idea," Koenig replied as he privately wondered just how they could cope with the effects of the Space Warp when they were further from it. "Keep us informed."

Helena nodded as she wrote a few notes down in her notebook.

Koenig turned to Alan. "We're going to need the Eagles for short term duration flights to scout out local space. How are we for fuel?"

"We received a fuel resupply from Earth a few months before we were….broken away," Carter said, stumbling over the fact they had been broken away from Earth's orbit, but he said the words as if they were still a terrible dream, a nightmarish scenario that shouldn't happen in reality. But it wasn't a dream. This was real. This was really happening. "But as long as we're frugal," the pilot went on, "we should be able to stretch the supply; Earth usually sends us about five-years worth of fuel anyway, which was one of the biggest headaches we received from the Commission because it cost so much for us to routinely send out our ships deeper into space for observational missions. In our current mess, if we're frugal, we might be able to make the supply last longer."

Koenig nodded. "Okay," he said, though he was hopeful by then they would have already found a new home so they wouldn't need to worry too much, but just the same he was worried about the sudden thought which popped into his mind about the thought of their Eagles losing fuel when they needed them. "Victor, do you have any ideas of how we can increase our fuel reserves even if we're frugal?"

The scientist leaned back in his seat thoughtfully while he pondered the problem. "We could try to create the fuel from the chemical elements already present on the moon," Victor suggested, "most of them are here already, so why not try to manufacture our own?"

"That's actually a good idea," Paul agreed. "At the same time, we might have enough to manufacture our own water for food."

Koenig smiled at his team. "That is a good idea," he smiled before he turned to the scientist. "Get started on finding ways of using the chemicals and elements on the moon, Victor. The sooner we have those resources, the easier it will be for us in the long run."

The meeting went on for about two hours. They spoke about the morale of Alpha and ways of keeping it up so then there wouldn't be riots and blood everywhere in time. It was Paul who suggested they have movie nights to try to keep everyone happy for the time being. It was a rather simple solution, but it was the only thing they could think of that would work for now.

They also discussed the Space Warp and ways they might have in detecting them in future. Nothing came of that point though. Space Warps were currently far beyond them, and they wouldn't magically understand them now they'd been catapulted to the other side of the galaxy.

"Where do you think we're going to be heading for next, sir," Paul asked as the meeting came to an end.

Everyone paused when they heard the question, and they turned to Koenig, awaiting an answer. "I don't know," he said after a moment's thought, "somewhere new."


	2. Chapter 2 Cartha

I am so sorry it's taken me so long to update this story. I have been very busy with other stories I've got in the works - uploading and updating and finishing what I've got out there. I'm hoping to begin updating more frequently.

Enjoy.

* * *

The Drift.

Space Infants.

An inhabited solar system. And it was right ahead of them.

The prospect of encountering other forms of life out in the universe had always been one of the biggest possibilities Victor Bergman had always speculated; to the scientist, there simply had to be living in the endless depths of outer space.

With the millions of stars in the galaxies binding worlds into solar systems, it was simply not logical to surmise Earth was the only planet in the cosmos which was capable of supporting life.

But this was the first time the moon had come into contact with an alien culture ever since the day everyone remembered as Breakaway and when they had been catapulted deeper and deeper into space thanks to the Space Warp, and they could see that this alien culture was far more advanced than their own. That was little surprising - Alpha had already met several races on their journey, and they had interstellar travel worked out. Some of it came in different shapes and forms, but they had it. Granted, they had never really found out what made it work since most of the races were hostile, and they didn't want to help the Alphans.

On the screen in Main Mission, everyone was staring at the screen, fascinated by what they were seeing. In the far distance was the glowing mass of the local star right in the centre of the solar system - Victor knew from the earlier scans taken by Computer the solar system they were travelling into contained just seven planets, and several moons - but dominating the screen were two planets, one of which had a beautiful set of rings surrounding it, making himself and everyone watching the screen think of a habitable Saturn.

The second one didn't, but they were both green and blue, both possessing cloudy atmospheres, although the second planet without the rings circling it appeared to have more water than the ringed world. The colours of blue and green for the ringed planet seemed mixed; some of the green was lighter in parts, darker in others, and there were patches of what appeared to be turquoise in the water.

However, Victor could see both worlds were colonised; the second planet without the rings circling it had large, oddly shaped looking masses in the water. _Floating cities? _he asked himself, mentally rubbing his hands with glee; although there had been talking about colonising the oceans on Earth, nothing had ever really come of it, despite the possibilities of it happening.

There were also large cities on the lands of both worlds; in fact, Victor thought he saw an odd shape on the second world that made him think of some form of floating spider web with the strands anchored on various landmasses which appeared to him to be too small to support any major land development.

The two worlds were so close together everyone could see the orbiting space stations; Victor's eyes crinkled with fascinated interest as he took in the admittedly distant space station which looked like a globe but it appeared to just have the basic shape of a globe and wasn't completely enclosed.

From where he was standing, it appeared the people who lived here, had constructed a central core and then ringed it with rotating sections of varying sizes.

The scientist in Victor was fascinated, knowing one of the simplest methods of generating artificial gravity was to create a spin in order to mimic the rotation of a planet or a similar body. Indeed there were dozens of theories and plans to construct something that rotated in space to generate artificial gravity, although it wasn't really needed since artificial gravity had been pioneered on Earth, and was used in Eagle transport shuttles, the former space station which had been knocked out of orbit, and lastly the gravity stabilisation of Moonbase Alpha itself.

But this space station…

Unlike the ones constructed by human hands, these aliens had both discovered a balance between elegance and functionality. Victor wondered just how advanced they were in different forms of science, but he surmised it was quite sophisticated. While there were elements of functionality and simplicity to the design of the station, there was also elegance to it, though from their current distance, he just could not make it out…

"Wow, look at that!" Paul whispered.

Victor was so hypnotised by the beauty of the space station he hadn't yet noticed the spacecraft passing by, and he was ashamed of himself for not noticing it.

"It's like a clipper," Alan commented.

Victor nodded to himself in agreement, although unlike the classical shapes of the ocean-going sailing ships used on Earth centuries before industrialisation brought in steam power, these ships were completely different. Long, sleek with assemblies of sails lining its hull, with what appeared to be two engines which looked like they were being hidden deliberately at the back of the ship, although Victor could see them because of the glow from one of them, the ship appeared more like a dolphin, or an orca. But from the hull, long girders holding the sails towered over the hull, and the sails themselves shone brightly in the strong lighting of the sun.

"Solar sails," John whispered in awe; they had all seen the first solar-sail space vessel launched from Earth. The Space Commission, typically enough, had commissioned the probe only to see just how much of a costly venture it was, only to be pleased when it wasn't. Sure, solar vessels were fragile since if anything happened to the sail, any crew member would be stranded. While they were practical, they weren't really seen as a long-term viable form of the interstellar craft because the suns rays would not reach out far enough to propel the sails over a large distance.

"It's beautiful," Sandra observed.

"It's not the only one, look," Kano pointed at the screen where another solar sail ship was travelling by in the distance.

"Are we getting anything from the ships and the station?" Koenig asked.

"Nothing so far, Commander," Paul replied after making a check at his console.

"They may not have detected us yet," Kano pointed out.

"Well, we can see them," Alan replied back.

"Start contact procedure," Koenig ordered.

"Yes, Commander," Paul was just saying when an unwelcome voice came from the doorway.

"What's going on, Koenig?"

Victor's eyes flickered over to the door where Commissioner Simmons had just walked in from. It was becoming rare just to see the Commissioner since he wasn't a scientist, a pilot, an engineer, or even a doctor. Sometimes Victor wondered just what the man did on Alpha, and although a part of Victor was sympathetic, it didn't go so far since Simmonds had gone out of his way to make himself as disliked as possible.

Although he had his back on his friend, Victor could tell John was gathering and calling upon his patience. "We have just entered an inhabited solar system, Commissioner," John replied, knowing soon word would get out they were in the home system of a space-faring race with technology more advanced than their own, and it would only be a matter of time before Simmons found out about it.

Victor had no idea what Simmons would do with this news. It was likely he would try to capitalise on it, try to find some way of getting back to Earth. Simmonds constantly talked about returning back to their home planet, but Victor doubted it would ever happen. The moon was travelling on a random course, and because of the gravitational pull of the different solar systems pulling them along it became increasingly harder to get an idea of where Earth was in relation to that, and since they were travelling at a velocity they couldn't even begin to measure since they didn't have the instruments, it was virtually impossible for them to return to Earth.

Victor had lost count of the number of times he had tried to tell Simmons it was impossible whenever the Commissioner kept coming to him to rope him into pushing the senior staff into researching a way of getting the population of Alpha back home. Victor didn't know why he bothered opening his mouth since it didn't seem to make any difference in the politicians' mindset.

"Inhabited? You need to get in contact with them at once," Simmons instructed as if he were the only one who understood the importance of this moment.

Victor silently glanced at John and the others to see how they took this command. He wasn't surprised when he saw the contempt in Alan and Paul's faces and the patience in Sandra and John's.

"We were just doing that, _Commissioner," _Paul said, stressing Simmons' rank to let the man know just how much contempt he had for him personally before he resent the contact signal. "We're getting a response, Commander. Audio only."

"_Greetings. Welcome to the Cartha system," _a melodious voice spoke over the intercom. "_Please be advised if you are hostile towards us, we shall destroy your moon, and your community. We have calculated your moon will be passing by one of the outer gas giants, close to one of our Helium 3 collection facilities."_

Victor gaped. _Helium 3? _

Experiments with fusion power had shown Helium 3 had the capacity to be more powerful than previous attempts, however due to the distance between Earth and the gas giants within the Sol system were so large, and the technology needed to create a viable nuclear fusion plant was years in the making, so there weren't that many experiments even though the benefits of fusion power were so obvious it was almost a sin not to take risks and make it work. As a result humanity in their time continued to rely on fission, and the nuclear waste had been dumped on the moon, where the EM energy had built up and up until they had been blasted out of Earth's orbit.

The Cartha didn't seem to have that problem, not if they made periodic flights into space, they would have so many chances just to study Helium 3 and learn how to use it to power their culture. Victor hoped these people were benevolent enough to give them hints and tips on how to make nuclear fusion so much more available rather than be reliant on nuclear fission forever.

"We are not harmful. We cannot travel back to our own planet," John replied.

"_Understood," _there was little sympathy within the melodious voice, but Victor wondered if this alien race even experienced the type of emotions humans did, but they would find out later. _"When you go into orbit above the collection facility, a team will transport to your moon to ascertain whether you are sincere or not. This is non-negotiable; our culture has had interaction with beings from outside our star system before, and once we were very nearly wiped out. As a result, we do not have the desire for it to happen again. Do not give the security detail trouble, if you do then your moon will be destroyed, and your entire population will be conscripted to work as slaves for the rest of your lives, or you will be shot on the spot."_

A silence fell over the shocked Main Mission, and the entire room's attention turned to John. Victor knew that although his friend was prepared to fight, he knew John was not stupid or suicidal enough to say anything really belligerent. But Victor could not even begin to wonder to himself if what John had just heard was going to send him over the edge.

Everyone watched and waited with baited breathe while they looked at their leader, wondering what he was going to say. Victor held up a hand when he noticed Commissioner Simmons about to open his mouth, and he actually walked over to the politician and made sure Simmonds understood this issue was one John and John alone could deal with.

Finally, John took a deep silent breath. "Very well. We will let you…inspect Alpha. We understand why you would be _concerned," _Koenig stressed the word without making it sound offensive while trying to find the ideal word to appease the Cartha, "about our arrival. But we do mean you no harm."

"_Very well. Await our arrival, and please make sure all of your people are not conducting any of your normal operations for our inspection team."_

"They've cut out, Commander," Paul reported.

"Are we really going to let these guys come to Alpha?" Alan turned his head, looking conflicted although Victor could very clearly see the growing annoyance on the younger man's face.

"What would you suggest Alan, fight? We don't know anything about these people; for all we know, they have the power to crack our moon in half like an egg," Paul argued.

Alan swung around, his eyes flashing while he clenched his fists with barely restrained anger at the threats they'd received from the Cartha, but Koenig's voice cracked like a whip; Victor closed his eyes when he heard the anger in his friend's voice, and he knew he was as angry as Alan, if not more so, but he knew John was thinking about everyone on the moon.

"That's enough! I don't like this any more than you do; I don't like the thought of the moon invaded _again _but I like the thought of us being either killed or enslaved even less," John's voice was strong at first but then it became calmer, controlled as he looked sympathetically at Alan. "I know how you feel, believe me, I do, but I need to think of the lives of _everyone _here. We know nothing about this race, but the last thing I want to do is to antagonise them. So please, keep calm."

Alan nodded, appearing a little calmer. "Okay, Commander."

John nodded back, but before he could say or do anything else, Simmons strode forward. "Are you mad, Koenig? Allowing an _alien _race on Alpha-?"

Victor saw John visibly take a deep breath to calm himself. John was an experienced commander and leader, and Victor knew he didn't like it whenever someone questioned his authority though he was open for debate, he didn't like it when people shoved what they considered failings into his face.

"I am responsible for a community, Simmons. What would you have done, told the Cartha we'd fight to the bitter end? Or would you want us to launch all of our Eagles in a futuristic representation of the Charge of the Light Brigade?" John asked the Commissioner in a quiet voice Victor recognised as he had heard it more than once. John was close to losing his temper, but Simmons, despite his experience as a politician, didn't seem to realise he was straying over a line.

Simmons conveniently ignored the crack about one of the biggest military disasters in human history especially since the Cartha warning had been very clear. "Nevertheless, you shouldn't allow them here-."

"Simmons, I am not going to let Alpha be destroyed by an alien race," John interrupted Simmons sharply. "I don't want them here, but we don't know what they're capable of compared to us. Need I remind you, our weapons have very rarely worked against alien lifeforms. The Cartha have spacecraft we haven't got, so who knows what they have got?"

John walked to his desk and pressed the button which would relay his voice throughout the base. He needed a few moments to gather and collect his thoughts before he spoke.

"Attention all stations Alpha. As many of you are now no doubt aware, we have entered a new solar system. This one is inhabited by a race known as the Cartha. They have encountered aliens before, and from what is implied by their radio communications, they were not happy encounters, since they have left the Cartha jaded towards other aliens," John began before he took another deep breath. "The Cartha have threatened Alpha with destruction or enslavement if we do not submit to an inspection. I don't want the aliens here any more than you do, but we have no alternative unless anyone decides to be foolish; I am going to be giving you the most difficult order ever. Do not interfere with the Cartha, we know nothing about them, and they do not seem to care about anything we have gone through. So I say again, let them come, and do not resist. Hopefully, if we prove to them we are not dangerous, we may get something out of it."

XXX

The Cartha shocked the Moonbase personnel. Everyone was tense for a full hour before they arrived. Everyone in Main Mission alone was looking with their necks craned upwards, expecting to see a ship of some kind slowly moving towards Alpha, but there was nothing. As the minutes ticked by, nerves and tempers were frayed. No-one could be blamed for that, of course; the Cartha's threats of enslavement and death were on everyone's minds, and as the minutes ticked by, everyone expected an entire fleet of ships to be coming towards the moon.

But nothing happened.

The tension was very high before one of the female personnel screamed in shock, and everyone jolted out of their tense vigils and found a group of dark-uniformed figures standing in Main Mission. Victor studied them with scientific interest. There seemed to be two forms of Cartha, and it made him wonder if there were two subspecies, or if there was some special advanced genetic engineering technique happening here.

Two of the Cartha who had arrived seemed smaller and lither looking in appearance compared to their slightly larger if still athletic cousins. It was like comparing a small house cat with a tiger, really; both were different sizes, but with the same characteristics between them both. The same was true of the Cartha. Their skin was pale, similar to caucasian skin tones, but their skin featured a blueish tinge underneath their jet-black hair. Their eyes were like chips of emerald.

The Cartha's uniforms were dark blue which was almost a purple in colour, and they had a wide dark silver belt loaded with sleek looking pouches containing equipment, but what drew the eye was the large gun-holster they were wearing. It never failed to amaze Victor that no matter the distance, every species they had run across so far had the same basic methods for carrying weapons.

"We mean you no harm," one of them said in a calm voice. "We are the inspection team. Please move away from your work so we can get started."

John stepped forward. "I am Commander John Koenig. I am responsible for the wellbeing of everyone in this base."

The speaker inclined their head in a bow from their shoulderS. "I am _Ultran _Virea, of the Cartha Security Division. Please make the necessary announcement to your people to not be taken by surprise while the Gateways on our planet send our teams to your moon."

Simmons chose that moment to step forward. "I am Commissioner Simmons, representative of Earth authority. If I may…we welcome you to Moonbase Alpha."

Koenig frowned as he wondered what Simmons was hoping for with this introduction.

Virea looked down her nose at Simmons. "What do you want?"

Simmons was momentarily taken by surprise by the bluntness of the question, but he recovered very quickly. "I wish to discuss terms-."

"You are in no position to discuss terms," the Cartha replied, her hand moving dangerously close to where her weapon was to warn Simmons what could happen if her patience wore thin. "You have strayed into our solar system. The last alien race with hostile intentions towards us has been mining minerals while under full mental control. Do not think your rank means anything here, primitive. You are nothing here, and if you cause problems for us, you will be either shot or taken and placed under mental control. Do I make myself clear?"

Koenig walked over and gently rested a hand on Simmons' arm to shut him up. He didn't like the threats any more than the others did, but he hoped that by cooperating with the Cartha, they might get out of this without any trouble, "May I ask what these aliens did to make you so suspicious of outsiders?" he asked.

Virea was silent for a moment. "We achieved space travel three centuries ago. At first, using a combination of solar sail technology and electromagnetic repulsion drives, we were able to cover the distance from our nearby planets, but then we discovered how to use Gateway technology, which interacted with the network of subspace corridors which threads through the cosmos. Soon we started using them to travel through the galaxy. We began travelling to other worlds, hoping to meet other races to add to our knowledge of the universe. We went in peace, but all we found was hatred and violence because the other alien races we encountered were frightened by our Gateway technology. We understood their fears, of course, but even after we tried to explain, tried to make them see reason, they refused.

"They stole our technology, and they started hunting us down through the galaxy. After a pitched battle with them, we managed to destroy our equipment. But they had found our homeworld, and they had launched a number of missiles which split our colony worlds into pieces. Eventually, we moved our civilisation away from our home galaxy, and we journeyed through space before we settled in this system."

"That's terrible," John whispered, looking at each of the Cartha sympathetically while the rest of the inspection team waved wand-like devices around Main Mission; the commander could see the tension in the rest of the team, but so far so good, no-one was causing any trouble and he hoped it stayed that way otherwise the consequences would be severe. "And that's why you are concerned about us?"

"This way we survive and ensure no-one tries to steal our technology again," the Cartha leader replied, "especially since we are going to conquer this galaxy."

"What?" Koenig replied, ignoring the gasps of surprise from the others. "But…why?"

"What you can control can't hurt you," the Cartha answered. "We may want to explore the universe, but we are never going to be attacked again. This time, we shall be the ones in command while the entire galaxy bows before us."

Victor and Koenig shared a look. While they could understand and sympathise with the Cartha for everything they had been through, they were horrified by the Cartha's new philosophy about needing to control the galaxy just so then they could explore it. Didn't they realise that type of mindset would cause more harm than good in the long run?

Once they had begun spreading through the galaxy with their Gateways - whatever they were and however they worked - the Cartha would be able to control so many races and planets, that by the end of it when they were all suppressed in the surprise attacks as the Cartha would appear out of nowhere, they would be free to do whatever they wanted. John and Victor had no idea what the Cartha would do once they had done that.

Suddenly Victor was struck with two possibilities. The first was the Cartha would just occupy the planets and keep the inhabitants from leaving their solar systems to be too dangerous, that in itself wasn't bad, but the second was the worst possible scenario. The Cartha invaded and occupied the planet, forcing the inhabitants into slavery and then steadily stripping everything from the alien worlds. The Cartha would also be free to conduct all kinds of atrocities against the different alien races such as brutal medical and scientific experiments, not seeing anything wrong with it since to the Cartha, they were _primitives._

"What's going to happen to us?"

Victor saw Koenig close his eyes at Simmons question; the last thing they needed right now was for attention to be drawn over to them even if the question was on their minds.

The Cartha turned to Simmons. Koenig cursed the fact the aliens had a familiar appearance to humans, but they had such cold expressions it was like speaking to a statue carved from ice. "I do not know yet. The report of our inspection will determine that once the High Council assimilates the data."

"What then?"

"You may live, you may die," the Cartha's simple statement was cold and cruel, but as soon as the Cartha finished there was a chirp coming from their belt. The Cartha leader took something from the belt which put Koenig in mind of an alien version of a com lock, only this was a more compact and disc-like design. The Cartha stared at the device for a moment before lifting their head.

"The High Council has decided to let you live. Your moon is already drifting through our solar system, but your presence is disturbing our operations. Therefore your moon shall be sent to one of the galaxies in our local group, and you will be allowed to drift on your way."

Koenig was astonished by the sudden shift, but Victor wanted to know why the Cartha were doing this. "Excuse me, but how are we disturbing your operations?"

The Cartha turned to face him. "We are constructing new generations of spacecraft. With each new generation, our technology becomes more refined and powerful. But we don't see the logic of keeping you here; your personnel have given us no trouble, your moon's course is erratic, and your travels takes you to lightspeed, therefore you have no way of warning any species of our presence nor our longterm plans since it is irrelevant. The plan is already made, and the Gateway is being readied now."

Simmons saw an opportunity there. "Excuse me," the commissioner began with what he believed was a charming smile, although neither Victor nor Koenig were convinced the Cartha were even remotely affected, "our moon was blasted out of our planet's orbit due to an unusual accident, and we have been trying to return home ever since. Is there any way you can help us?"

Koenig and Victor shared a look with most of the Main Mission personnel, unsurprised by Simmons' never-ending capacity for lying. Everyone on the base knew Commissioner Simmons was obsessed with returning to Earth, but while some of the Alpha personnel would love to see their planet again, they knew it wasn't going to happen, unless by some quirk of fate.

Moonbase Alpha was not a spaceship. It had no navigational equipment although it did have star charts of their home solar system, and it had monitoring instruments for short-range astronomical observations, but that was it. No-one on Alpha even knew where Earth was, and since they had moved to the other side of the galaxy after passing through the space warp, they were further from their star system than ever.

Simmons was living in a fantasy world where everyone shared the same goals. He was completely ignorant of the fact they could not go home, and even if they had the Gateway technology, no-one knew which way they could go. If they had it, they could travel for decades without even coming close to Earth.

"No, you're not," the Cartha's reply was said with an almost amused, but contemptuous inflection.

Simmons looked at the alien surprised. "I beg your pardon?"

"You are not going home. How can you? Your moon is merely drifting through intergalactic and interstellar space. Our scans indicate your Computer only has a few star charts of your local star system, and only a few scans of space outwards, no more. You have no means of controlled propulsion, no navigation. You are drifting blind."

With each word, Simmons visibly deflated as the truth was shoved down his throat, but Koenig stepped forward. "Is there any way you can give us your Gateway technology so we can control our course?" he asked, although everyone in the room knew their commander well enough to know what the Cartha would say, given the way they had explained their history.

"No," the reply was immediate, but before anyone could say anything before the group of Cartha vanished from Main Mission.

"Commander, look!" Sandra called, diverting everyone's attention to the screen.

Gone was the Cartha home system. It had been replaced with the blackness of space with the massive vista of an unknown galaxy spread out before them, composed of many sweeping arms, like a starfish had been given many more arms which were then swept at different angles by a gust of strong weather which disturbed their environment. The new galaxy shone with a mix of purple, green, brilliant yellow and orange, flecked with blue and red, like some sea cucumber at the bottom of the sea, dotted with the bright lights of millions of stars.

"Kano," Koenig said, "can Computer get a fix on our position relative to the galaxy we've just left?"

Kano got to work. A few moments later, he sighed and leaned back. "No, Commander. Computer has no idea just how far we've come."

Koenig sighed. "So we go on."


	3. Chapter 3 The Worst Fear

The Drift.

John Koenig was in Main Mission, but he was bewildered about why it was all so dark.

He looked around desperately, seeing that the usually bright interior lighting in the room was off. He wondered for a moment if the power systems had suffered a major failure, but he couldn't be sure. He quickly worked out he wasn't alone in the room, although he couldn't see the faces he was positive they were there.

"Launch Eagle 1!" the voice of Paul Morrow cut through his thoughts, and John swung around to Paul's station. The flight coordinator was sitting at his station as he normally did, but as John watched he couldn't see _the figure move. _

_In fact, no-one was moving. _

Koenig looked around the room, seeing that while Computer was working, the main viewing scanner was running on static, so he couldn't see what was happening, and there were no visual means of seeing the condition of the Eagle as it was launched. But what surprised him the most was the fact Main Mission personnel were conducting and supervising a launch without visual sensors active.

"Eagle 1 launching! Let's hope it gets through," the voice of Captain Alan Carter said.

"Paul? Alan?" John said, hoping to get answers.

To his surprise, the shadowy figures moved as one at the sound of his voice, and they turned in his direction slowly.

"I thought he was dead!" Sandra spat.

"Yes, Computer registered his loss. Shame," Kano observed.

Although he had not intended to, Koenig backed away, surprised to hear the two people whom he had come to know very well speak in such hateful tones.

"Why are you still alive, Koenig?" Paul asked, his voice not sounding emotional like Sandra's, but it sounded more dead than Kano's usually calm voice.

"What are you talking about?" John asked, wondering why his longtime friend and colleague would ask something like that. Another thing that worried him was how they were speaking to him in this manner and their lack of formality. But Kano and Sandra's feelings worried him the most; he had a good relationship with the pair, as far as he knew, he had never gotten any hint of insubordination from them before, especially not to this level.

"Why are you still alive when so many are dead, why we are _dead?" _Alan demanded in the same dead tone as Paul's, but the last word was finished with a shout before the figure that apparently represented Alan leaned forward.

John gasped in horror as he beheld the sight of a rotting corpse wearing the grimy, tattered remains of Alan's uniform. The corpse itself was missing an eye and the remaining eye looking like it was only just hanging inside the skull, and some of the flesh was black and decomposed.

Lights seemed to pinpoint the rest of the Main Mission crew, and John cried when he saw that Alan was not the only corpse of one of his friends in Main Mission. The only one who seemed more alive was Sandra, although she looked like she was on the point of becoming a rotten corpse, with how withered she appeared. Her body looked like it had been drained of all fluids in her body as if every drop of life in her body had been torn from her body.

"What's happened to you? Why are you launching an Eagle?" John asked.

"We are dead," Kano replied simply.

"We have been travelling through space without end for years," Alan said, now speaking in the same dead quality.

"What?" Koenig gaped at him.

"We are launching an Eagle, to get our _children away from YOU!" _Paul shouted.

Koenig jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned around and found himself looking at Victor. His friend was looking at him so solemnly John almost missed the clothes he was wearing. He was wearing the clothes of an undertaker.

"Come with me, John," he said, reaching out and dragging him….

XXX

John found himself in the sickbay, only it was as dark as Main Mission only it was a little bit brighter than Main Mission, so it didn't take him long to take in the surroundings of the room. He was surprised when Victor gently pulled him to the beds, and he gasped in horror. He was looking at a number of dead bodies of Alpha's personnel, all of them covered with thick cobwebs. John stepped back from them, but he couldn't take his eyes off of any of them. They looked like they had been drained of all life, much like Sandra, only they were not rotting like Paul or Alan.

"What happened to them?" he asked.

Victor didn't reply. He just stared solemnly at the bodies.

"Victor?" John pressed.

The base scientist took a deep breath and came back to life, although John wasn't sure if he was alive or dead. "They died, John," he replied in that quiet voice of his, but where Victor usually spoke with the air of one of those teachers who believed the best way to educate his students was through kindness and wisdom while making them realise they had to be aware of their own mistakes, while using his own excitement to learn as well.

"How?" John asked, looking horrified at the bodies.

"Because of you!"

John swung around and he found himself looking at Helena. The bases' chief medical officer was dressed in a long black dress. She looked like she was about to head to a funeral. "Helena-," he tried to say, but she waved her hand.

"No, you have _nothing to say to me! _This," she gestured at the bodies on the bed, "_is all down to you! _Never trying to colonise a planet, even when there are ways to circumvent the dangers. Everyone eventually realised you cared more for your own power, everyone realised you wanted us to keep on drifting endlessly through the vacuum of space on this pointless journey through outer space."

John didn't know what to say as the harangue went on. Ever since they had begun their journey into space, they had encountered several worlds that looked ideal for colonisation, only for them to discover there were unexpected dangers and hazards on the different worlds that made the prospect of colonisation impossible.

"Helena, none of that was my fault; we were always finding hazards we didn't understand!"

Helena sneered at him, and his eyes were drawn to the rotting skin of the gums. "Everyone started having _children _on Alpha because everyone had lost faith we would have a planet of our own again! We could have colonised a world like Retha, even if some of us were transformed into cavemen!"

"But if we did-!" John tried to say, but everything around him; Victor, the corpses on the beds, the walls, Helena, the instruments, all of them blended together into a vortex of colour….

XXX

"All your fault!"

"We are dying because of you!"

"The last of the human race, and yet we are dead with you around!"

John moaned as image after image swept through his mind….

XXX

….he came across a group of Alphans running through the corridors of the base, screaming as the walls and the ceiling exploded inwards, buckling under some terrific impact. The ground underneath John's feet buckled as well as the base rocked, but he managed to right his balance just in time before he was thrown off of his feet. He took off running with the base personnel instinctively, and he doubled his pace when he heard the alarms indicating explosive decompression was in progress.

The people who had designed and constructed Alpha had not been amateurs. The designers had taken every fact, every scrap of the dangers of space travel and space exploration, from meteor impacts which ranged in size from the size of a grain of sand to the impact from a football-sized impact to the mighty crater which was believed to have been caused when the dinosaurs had gone extinct. Alpha was designed to be constructed of a honeycomb of space plates that were reinforced with the spaces filled with kevlar, and a thick sponge-like material to soak up impacts while a number of lead linings protected them from solar flares.

But accidents could and did happen, but ever since Alpha had broken away from its Earth orbit, the dangers had grown more and more severe as the base encountered hazards beyond the comprehension of the best scientists of their time.

A whole section of wall came away, and Koenig grabbed a female crewmember. The woman screamed as she looked at him….

XXX

….this time he was inside an Eagle as he was flying through space, but the spacecraft was spinning out of control so it was hard to concentrate. Koenig took a deep breath as he tried to work out what was wrong with the Eagle as he tried desperately to regain control over the ship. But the controls were non-responsive, and the joystick would just not move. Smoke and the scent of burning plastic wafted up to his nose, and he coughed as his eyes began to sting while his ears were bombarded with the sound of the alarms.

He lifted his head, hoping to find something he could use to help him get out of his horror. But he stopped when he saw something he didn't expect through the cockpit windows.

It was Earth.

The planet didn't look all that different from the last time John had seen it around the time they'd broken away from their solar system. Everyone on Alpha had long since stopped speaking about Earth, knowing if they did they would all become homesick since there was no way they would return there since their random course made it impossible for them to predict their movements.

Suddenly the Earth exploded….

XXX

John woke up panting, and his eyes darted around the room desperately, fully expecting to see decomposed or half decomposed corpses lying around the room, or areas where it looked like decompression was about to take place, but there was none of that. There were no telltale signs of air hissing out although it was hard to be sure since he was breathing so hard, nor was there anyone in his quarters other than himself.

"_John, are you alright?" _He looked up and saw Helena's face looking at him over the communication screen. He smiled at her nervously, happy that the anger and rage she had seen in the face of her dream-self was not there.

"Just about, I had a nightmare," he panted as he tried to exorcise the images out of his mind, but it was virtually impossible. He had always considered the rest of the bases' personnel were angry with him for not finding a replacement home after they'd been blasted away thanks to Earth's careless nuclear waste dumping program. Oh, sure, he had been supported by the evidence, but it was always there in the back of his mind.

"_Do you need a sedative?" _Helena asked.

John considered it for a moment, but he shook his head. "No, I should be alright, hopefully by the morning. I'll see you then."

Helena smiled, although it was tinged with concern. _"Okay, but give me a call if you can't get back to sleep."_

John nodded and smiled, knowing Helena might ask him what the nightmare was about, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.


	4. Chapter 4 Graveyard

I don't own Space 1999.

Please let me know what you think.

* * *

The Drift.

A space warp.

Undetectable, unavoidable, and always painful whenever they snagged the moon and flung it across space. Sometimes the Alphans would be thrown only a few light-years away from where they had been before, to millions of light-years which took them even further away from where they had started out at.

Victor winced as he felt the bone-jarring ache in his shoulder and arm when he hit the floor of Main Mission, but nearby he heard the groans of the personnel in the room as they were thrown about.

_Damnit, I wish there was a better way of detecting these things, _Victor thought to himself, rethinking the same thing he'd thought time and time again in his mind whenever they encountered a space warp, however when they had left Earth they hadn't even _known _these things even existed until they had encountered the one just outside their solar system, which catapulted them across the galaxy, let alone how to detect them.

Not for the first time, Victor wished they had found the cash to really get space exploration going had been present. If they had so many of the issues they had with Alpha, from the minuscule hydroponic facilities, and the sheer size of the base itself might have been solved. Victor Bergman was one of thousands of people who had wanted to throw resources into the research of space exploration. It offended his dignity as a scientist to just construct a base on the moon, doing the bare minimum to venture beyond; the _Voyager _ships didn't really count, although having the Queller drive would certainly help despite the dangers, maybe if they had they would have better facilities here on Alpha.

But unfortunately, it had never happened. It was no use moaning about it now, they had to just accept what little they had, and make the best of things. Victor grimaced as his teeth chattered, as though he had been thrown outside into a cold, snowy street, but this was a side effect of the space warp, and they knew from experience the warp would not last forever.

But something was wrong.

This warp felt different.

Victor didn't know how to describe it any more than anyone else on Alpha despite being one of the scientists on the base, although from what he could tell, this space warp felt like it possessed a much greater gravitational effect than normal, and it pressed him down into the ground of Main Mission, although it didn't feel like he had been pressed down strongly as he had along with the others when the moon had been broken away from Earth.

It wasn't that unusual since there seemed to be two different forms of space warp, those which had a much higher gravitational presence, and the other which didn't although it was hard for him to work out why that was. Suddenly the effects of the space warp began the subside, and he could feel the pressure on his chest and legs lift off until it was gone.

Victor took slow, deep breaths - he'd learnt the easiest way to come out of a space warp like that was to take things slowly, and breath in and out slowly in order to circulate air through his body - before he slowly clambered to his feet. The others were gasping and groaning as they struggled back to their feet.

"Is everyone alright?" John asked while he checked on everyone near where he had fallen.

David Kano gasped as he stood up, groaning from the effort; Victor watched him with concerned worry, knowing from experience the Computer technician had felt like he had been pressed to the ground, and his legs felt awkward.

"Computer is okay, Commander. It's coming on now," he reported while he punched in a command into his station.

"I meant _how are you, _Kano?" John asked wryly.

Kano chuckled and turned in his seat. "We've been thrown around in a meat grinder, Commander," he grinned. "How are we meant to feel?"

John chuckled as well.

Alan grunted as he stood up, rubbing his head. He'd bumped it on the desk when he'd gone down. "Man, what was with the space warp? It felt more like being thrown into a Vomitorium."

Victor winced as he thought about the zero-g training simulations which everyone assigned to Moonbase Alpha, and other astronomical projects were expected to go through.

"I don't know," Victor stepped into the debate, looking at the main scanner curiously.

"Sickbay reports everyone is alright, Commander," Paul reported, looking relieved to say so. "Dr Russell just reports a few bumps and bruises-."

Paul's report ended when there was a familiar rattling through the base.

"Oh no, not again."

"Not so soon, surely?"

"How many space warps are we going to go through today?"

Victor ignored the overlapping questions as everyone in the room who held some degree of foresight grabbed hold of the station consoles or the supports; they knew it might be useless, but they hoped to get through this new space warp without being thrown around the room.

"_Main Mission, this is not a good time!" _Helena's voice came over the communications channel, but the space warp swallowed up anything she might have planned to say next.

This space warp was slightly longer than the last, and it seemed to turn the moon over. The effects of the g-force washed over the entire moon, only this time the crew felt disorientated.

Fortunately, this space warp was shorter than the last one. Victor closed his eyes and tried to control his nausea. He felt physically ill after the last two space warps, and it was taking everything he had not to vomit everywhere. One look around the room told him he wasn't the only one valiantly fighting the urge either.

"That….was not pleasant," one of the crew remarked.

"Got that right!" Paul's head was on the desk of his station as he whispered that reply.

"_Two _space warps in just one day, that's unexpected," Alan observed, looking like he wanted nothing more than to pass out. Victor couldn't blame him; the trip through one space warp could be rough or fairly smooth, however going through two rough ones would be enough.

"Any idea where we are?" someone asked.

Sandra checked. "No, but we've definitely come a long way, none of the stars is matching any of our previous scans. There's no way of knowing where we are now."

Victor looked up at the viewing monitor. Their scanners had been the most advanced developed on Earth after years of development before Moonbase Alpha was constructed, but they were only good when the moon was in orbit around a planet, but out here where they were continuously moving due to the shifts in gravity the scanners were not so good. They were even worse when they travelled through a space warp since they had no idea just how far they travelled at the best of times.

For all they knew they could be anywhere in the universe. They could be further and further away from Earth, or they could be passing close to their planet. They had no way of telling.

"Hold it a minute," Paul said suddenly while he studied his sensors carefully. "I'm picking something up. Multiple contacts."

"Can you put it up?"

"I'll see, but the space warp has shot several of our sensor beams-," Paul said slowly before he made the appropriate adjustment and the viewing monitor shifted.

"A solar system," Alan whispered.

He was right. On the screen was a star with several planets already in view. They were travelling towards it, and Victor realised they were travelling quite quickly towards the system.

Victor was not the only one to realise they were travelling to this new solar system much more quickly than they normally did. "We seem to be heading towards the system very quickly," Kano observed, already checking with Computer to find out why before he stiffened. "Commander, I'm picking up multiple contacts alright, they are definitely in that solar system," Kano pointed.

"Are we close enough to see it?" John asked.

"I'll try…"

The view on the monitor was magnified to its highest maximum setting. The bodies of the solar system blew up in size and they could take in the details of their features, but they were still blurry since they were still too far from the solar system despite just how fast they were travelling towards it, but they didn't need help with seeing what was in the system.

Spaceships. Dozens of them. No, hundreds. At first, Victor and the rest of the Main Mission personnel were only able to see three ships originally, but they quickly realised they were wrong.

Victor had always wondered to himself if Man would ever learn to develop spaceships that were more durably built than the probe ships they used ordinarily, but with added aesthetics nailed down but he had the feeling it wouldn't be until centuries had passed and humans had eventually solved the riddle of faster than light propulsion and had begun sending ships out into the Milky Way, and even beyond they would begin constructing their ships to possess more longevity for longer voyages so they wouldn't resemble rockets made by construction girders.

Some of the ships he was seeing right now seemed to have solved that problem, although he wasn't sure from this far out and from just the visual scanners alone.

One of the ships on the screen was essentially a simple sphere. That made sense; with nothing in space that acted like air, there was no drag in space which pressed against a ship's hull like it did in the air or in the water, which was why ships, planes, and submarines were designed with special shapes which allowed the air or water to pass over them. The ship on the screen was spherical alright, but Victor couldn't see any sign of any engine in the hull made up of large hexagonal plating. There were also no sign of any windows or viewing ports. Did the people who built this ship simply find it too dangerous to design a ship with a window, with all the hazards out there? Victor had lost count of the number of times a viewing port on a ship or a probe or even one of the windows of Alpha had been punched in with a stray piece of space debris left behind by years of accumulated space junk which had been accelerated to travel millions of hours per hour.

It would be logical for a spaceship to be constructed of two hulls which would be covered with a shell dotted with different sensors in order to reduce the risk, so Victor could definitely understand if that was the case here.

But how did it move?

Victor couldn't see any sign of any conventional engine, and it made him curious while he ran through his mind the kinds of propulsion systems this ship could use, but he had to admit he was out of his depth here while he tried to find so many answers to his questions, and as a result he almost missed the next ship which caught his attention.

The next ship was essentially just a long gunmetal grey cylinder with the hull separated into eight spheres that were moulded into the hull as if they had been vacuum moulded. He could just see the engine, and the closest he could compare it with was a _Voyager _probe equipped with a more powerful version of the Queller drive.

"Wow, look at that," Alan was awed when he caught sight of the next ship, and nobody could blame him if the sounds of amazement and mutters were anything to go by.

This space ship - was it a space ship given its size? - was perhaps the most intricate vessel Victor had ever seen in his life. When Victor had been a boy, he had been taken by his grandfather to visit a friend who manufactured and repaired watches. Victor had spent many hours in the man's workshop, just observing the intricate way the watchmaker delicately assembled the watches, with every move timed and honed to precision until he had a working watch.

The experience had had an effect on Victor, who had learnt from the watchmaker the best way to make something or to observe something was to be immensely precise and work ahead to that same precision.

_But how many _watchmakers _were required to just build this ship? _Victor couldn't help but ask himself as he scanned the ship's features. It was essentially a sphere made up of nothing but rings that were supported by four spokes, and the rings rotated slowly inside one another while there was a larger sphere made of some transparent substance that held it all in, all to induce artificial gravity. Victor couldn't think of any other reason why the rings would be rotating within one another, but the most interesting thing was the ship did seem to be rotating much like a conventional planet with an axis of its own.

"Some kind of space colony?" John's voice which was so close to him made Victor jump, and he turned to his old friend.

"Could be," Victor replied softly as his eyes traced every detail of one of the rings before his eyes caught another one. "_Remarkable. _Could you imagine how long it must have taken to design such a structure?"

John nodded, his own eyes glazed as he tried to imagine how much time and intellect had gone into design something so intricate. Artificial gravity induced by rotation had always been around, and Earth had even experimented with a few test ships which had rotating sections to induce artificial gravity. The theory was since rendered obsolete since the first gravity motors and gravity plates appeared after a few experiments which tinkered with a theory of everything, but Victor could see why a species who wanted to construct a space colony which travelled through space would go the other route.

With a larger ship with rotating sections, the colonists and crew would feel they were still on a planet or a moon, and there would be no need to worry about visiting planets on a frequent basis since they would have almost everything they needed. Still, he couldn't help but wonder just how long it had taken for this race of aliens to construct a ship this big. He had no idea if they had constructed the ship through the use of automated machines, which would be practical and beneficial since machines could work for hours without needing to be recharged if they had the right power source.

The next ship which caught Victor's eye was almost disappointing, it was incredibly tiny when compared to the spherical colony, but on closer inspection, the scientist could make out the similarities to some of the first Earth space capsules.

"Paul, are we close enough yet to initiate contact procedures?" John asked.

Paul checked but he sighed with disappointment. "No, sir. We're still too far away. Estimates show we should be close to initiating contact procedures in another four hours."

John sighed himself, but Victor remained silent as he watched as another space ship appeared on the screen. At first, he was reminded vividly of a rocket out of a _Dan Dare _comic, but as he looked closer he saw the ship possessed nacelles connected to the wings. The nacelles were both short, but sleek, and much like the original spherical shaped ship, this ship didn't have any visible viewports or windows, which made Victor wondered if the idea of developing spacefaring races eventually opted not to endanger the lives of their ships and their crews by constructing their ships with scanners that allowed them to see outside their ship without putting them in danger.

"God, that one's a bruiser," Alan muttered, and a few other men nodded in agreement as they spotted the large ship that had just drifted into view (Victor still wasn't sure if the ships or colonies in this flotsam even had anyone on them, although he lived in hope these aliens were peaceful, he doubted this one was if they designed their ships like this).

The ship was clearly some kind of warship with a dagger-shaped body with two swept-back wings which joined to two stubby nacelles much like the previous ship Victor had studied, but that was as far as similarities went. This ship was covered with all kinds of weapon platforms with visible missile silos dotted all over the hull. The weapons…. Victor honestly had no idea what they could do; since Breakaway, they had encountered more than their fair share of powerful weapons, some of them seemed to be augmented versions of the ones used by Earth by the time of their accident, but most of the time…

Victor knew one thing, he didn't want to be anywhere near this ship in a battle. It just seemed to radiate a threatening aura that he simply did not like, and he wondered what kind of minds drove the ship. The ship was coloured a gunmetal grey, although darker than one of the original ships he had seen when they had first sighted the flotsam, and the back of the hull seemed to be slightly lowered in proportion with the dagger-shaped forward hull, and the nacelles were narrow. If ships had expressions, Victor could imagine this one was frowning. It was a threatening and intimidating look, and not one anyone in their right minds would want to be near.

The warship was dwarfed by a ship that was more larger and seemed to be constructed with a focus more on organic looking aesthetics that gave it a striking looking. The ship resembled a crossed between a bird or an ocean-going manta ray mixed with the form of the whale, and it was long - Victor knew Kano would give the precise measurement in a moment if he felt it relevant, but he was going to go with the hunch and estimate the ship having a length of roughly a few miles. It certainly seemed long enough, but the true reason for the ship's girth was the wings. Unlike the warship before it, this ship's wings were large and gave it an impression of power the other ships simply could not match. But this latest ship was nothing compared to what happened next.

"My god!" Paul's whisper could barely even describe the behemoth that had happened on the screen.

It was another spherical ship, only if the one before was the size of a moon this was the size of a gas-giant. This spherical spaceship was surrounded in an outer frame which seemed to act in the same manner as the harness of a mountain rock climber, but jutting from the outer frame at intervals were what looked like retro-rockets but they were enormous. Victor tried to imagine their sheer power and he simply could not see it. He had no way of knowing if they were nuclear rockets, or something more sophisticated.

"It's like a bubble," John commented, "it's almost like the last one."

Victor agreed, but he and John were both aware the first spherical space ship's outer sphere was a protective layer, perhaps it even contained the atmosphere of the colony. This sphere's shell was essentially a collection of semi-translucent bubbles which covered the surface.

"_MY APOLOGIES!" _

Everyone jumped in Main Mission when the voice boomed out of the radios. Paul and Sandra were instantly checking the channels, but the voice went on.

"_I AM IMMENSELY SORRY; MY FASTER THAN LIGHT DRIVE HAS MALFUNCTIONED AND BROUGHT YOU HERE."_

"Kano, is that transmission coming from the ship directly in front of us?" John asked quickly.

"No, Commander. It's coming from another ship, and it's coming straight towards us," Kano replied. "The message…Computer has just examined it. It's just a general hail."

"Put it up," Koenig ordered.

The view on the screen changed. It was clear to Victor the other spaceships that were floating in this solar system had been the pinnacle of development for their respective races, indicating that like Earth, they had worked on space travel for decades, perhaps millennia. But this ship…

"It's like the next generation for the Meta, Voyager and Ultra Probes, with a splash of sci-fi thrown in," Paul commented.

Victor had to agree.

The ship was certainly very primitive when compared to the other ships on the screen in the background. It was rounded and appeared to be a giant bullet or a missile, and it was rotating which indicated other people experimenting with rotational gravity. It had clearly been constructed with the same functionality over appearance as humans currently did. The ship was broken up into several segments, and it was clear to everyone in Main Mission those segments could be broken off at the crew's discretion. But none of the Main Mission personnel could work out what those segments were, although they guessed, using their own experiences with space travel as a guide, they were used for storage of supplies, hydroponics for their race's plants for food and additional life-support systems. The nose-cone was similar but differently designed than what the long-range Earth mission vessels favoured.

The aft section of the ship was essentially a large rocket motor with conduits and pipes joined with a mishmash of fuel tanks. The curious thing about the ship, and the reason why Paul had pointed out the similarities between this ship and the Earth Voyager probe ships before the Queller drive disaster with the last one which had been launched which had called for a ban on all Queller drive designs which were planned for launch away from the Sol System, and were cancelled when so many lives were lost; there were three large mirrored panels on some kind of scaffold. Victor wondered if they were solar panels or some kind of advanced solar sail, however, they seemed to double as some kind of sensor array if the dishes and aerials mounted onto the spheres on the top of the scaffolds were anything to go by.

"That's a _faster than light _ship?" Someone asked.

"I know, it looks a bit clunky, but don't forget; some of our best discoveries were made in ships that looked much like that one does," Sandra commented.

"Well said," John nodded in approval to Sandra's words. "Paul, contact procedure; see if we can speak to them. If they've got a faster than light drive, we could make some use of it, but don't tell them that."

Victor walked over to John, keeping his eyes on the screen thoughtfully. "What do you think Victor?"

Victor shrugged. "I have no idea. There are many theories of faster than light propulsion; most of them involve knowledge of physics we just don't understand. I can tell most here don't see it as an FTL ship."

"You're not convinced either?"

"I don't know, John; twenty years ago I would have said the type of disaster which blew us out of Earth's orbit would be virtually impossible and only possible in theory. In any case, this ship doesn't necessarily need to travel in a conventional way to what we're used to. Don't forget our meeting with the Cartha; they said something about an under space, and we still don't know how it works. Who knows?"

"Commander," Paul interrupted as he examined his workstation. "That ship is sending a transmission."

"_OH, THANK THE GODS. YOU'RE ALL ALIVE. I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THE TRAVEL-MAT SYSTEM," _the same voice from the first transmission said over the radio, "_ARE YOU ALL ALRIGHT?"_

John made a hand gesture to Paul. "We've had a few bumps and bruises, and we were a little shaken when we passed through the space-warps-."

"_SPACE WARPS? WHAT ARE SPACE WARPS? NO, WHAT YOU EXPERIENCED WAS MY SHIP'S MALFUNCTIONING FASTER THAN LIGHT SYSTEM."_

_These people don't know anything about space warps? Interesting, _Victor thought to himself.

John licked his lips. "A space warp is essentially just a fold in space; we don't know how they work, so don't ask. There are theories they are traversable wormholes, but we've never been able to examine one to be certain due to our moon's constant motion through space. How did your Faster than Light drive bring us here?"

"_A WORMHOLE? I'M FAMILIAR WITH THE THEORY, BUT NO; OUR DRIVE SYSTEM MAKES USE OF A DISCOVERY OUR PEOPLE MADE WHEN WE FIRST ACHIEVED SPACE-FLIGHT. WE DISCOVERED A NUMBER OF CORRIDORS WHICH THREAD THROUGH THE COSMOS, ALLOWING FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL. MY GOVERNMENT WORKED ON TWO WAYS WE COULD TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT; TELEPORTATION, OR SIMPLY TRAVEL THROUGH THE CORRIDORS LIKE ORDINARY SPACECRAFT TRAVEL THROUGH SPACE."_

"Corridors through space?" John said thoughtfully, thinking the exact same thing everyone else who had been in Main Mission on the day the Cartha had appeared in Alpha. "It just so happens, we have heard of corridors similar to the ones you described, from a race known as the Cartha-."

"_YOU KNOW OF MY PEOPLE? HOW?"_

John looked around the room, surprised. "You're a Cartha?"

"_YES….HOWEVER, THAT DOES NOT ANSWER __**MY **__QUESTION," _the Cartha replied.

"No, no it doesn't," John whispered, looking at the rest of the main mission crew as he tried to think of a way he could speak to the Cartha without the pilot losing his temper. "You see, we've encountered your people. They were driven out of their home galaxy when their technology which moved them through space in a similar manner to your faster than light drive caused the inhabitants of your home galaxy to attack them. The Cartha escaped and they rebuilt."

Victor was surprised John would disclose those details to the Cartha pilot, but he quickly realised if the pilot came to Alpha, some of the Alpha personnel would probably let something slip.

"_HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? ARE MY PEOPLE…ALRIGHT? CAN YOU HELP ME FIND THEM?"_

"They are. Although, I am not sure if we can help; you see our moon has no navigational system, and we're drifting through space. In any case, your people used this…Gateway technology to move us from one galaxy to another," John replied though he was wondering how he could admit the experience of being driven out of their home galaxy had turned the Cartha into a xenophobic race. In the end, he decided not to say anything. "Listen, is there any way you can get us out of this solar system?"

"_I HAVE TRIED, MANY TIMES. UNFORTUNATELY, I AM NOT A TRAINED ENGINEER NOR AM I A PILOT. I HAVE BEEN STRANDED HERE FOR CENTURIES. WE CARTHA ARE A LONG-LIVED RACE. I AM - OR I WAS - THE CAPSULE'S DOCTOR."_

"What was your mission?"

"_WE WERE SENT OUT TO THE TEST THE LATEST VERSION OF THE GATEWAY TECHNOLOGY. WHEN WE DISCOVERED THE UNDERSPACE CORRIDORS, WE REALISED IT COULD TAKE MANY THOUSANDS OF YEARS TO PROPERLY MAP THEM OUT, ALTHOUGH WE COMMENCED ON THE PROJECT, FOR OUR DEEP RANGE COLONIES, WE DECIDED TO FIND A WAY OF TELPORTING OURSELVES THROUGH THE NETWORK SO WE ARRIVED AT OUR DESTINATIONS QUICKLY. IT TOOK YEARS TO DEVELOP THE METHOD, AND EVEN LONGER TO PROPERLY WORK ON THE FINER DETAILS SO WE COULD TEST IT. MY SHIP AND MY CREW WERE ONE OF MANY TEST-SHIPS TO STUDY THE METHOD."_

"Where are these corridors?" Victor couldn't help but ask.

"_WHO IS THIS?"_

"My name is Victor Bergman," Victor replied for himself, seeing that John wasn't particularly happy with the interruption, but John knew him well enough to know he wouldn't be speaking unless he was curious. "I am one of the scientists in this moon-base."

"_A SCIENTIST?"_ There was excitement in the Cartha's otherwise calm voice. "_DO YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN ASSIST ME WITH THE REPAIRS, SO I CAN TRY TO FIND MY PEOPLE?"_

"I could try, if I had access to your ship's technical files," Victor's voice was neutral, although everyone could tell he was excited at the thought of learning something new. "Teleportation experiments on Earth were in their infancy when we left, but I think I might be able to help you."

"Is there any chance you can land on Alpha, so we can speak and Victor can take a look at your Gateway drive?" John interrupted, sending a look at Victor.

"_I CAN SEPARATE MY SHIP, AND I CAN TAKE VICTOR BERGMAN BACK HERE SO HE CAN EXAMINE MY SHIP. HOWEVER, WE SHALL HAVE TO MOVE QUICKLY; MANY OF THE SHIPS ARE IMMOBILISED, HOWEVER, THEY ROUTINELY EMPLOY PIRACY AGAINST NEWCOMERS SO THEY CAN TAKE SUPPLIES."_

Victor shared a worried look with John, and he noticed the others looked concerned as well.

"I will come," he spoke up before John could interrupt. "I shall bring a team with me. However, we should like to know more about this Underspace and how it works."

"_IT GOES AGAINST MY RACE'S SECURITY; HOWEVER, SINCE YOU ARE HELPING, I SHALL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU."_

XXX

"Victor, why are you taking the risk?" John asked as they headed for the travel tube which would take them to the airlock where the Cartha ship's cockpit had landed only twenty minutes ago. The decision was simple - the Cartha would remain on the ship while Victor led a team of scientists and two security guards to protect them, much to Victor's annoyance although he knew the order was sound given their last meeting with the Cartha.

"You know why, John," Victor said. "If we can help the Cartha, we might be able to bring back some knowledge of the Underspace technology."

"I hope you're right, Victor," John said, shaking his hand.

The scientist smiled and he shook his friend's hand warmly before he went to the tube and he went inside, looking back and smiling at his friend.

John smiled before he turned and headed back for Main Mission.

XXX

Six hours later, John was looking at the Cartha ship, knowing something was wrong, and as the second ticked by he felt his concerns solidify. It had been six hours since they had sent up the team to the ship, and aside from the initial message, there had been nothing. Alan was already preparing an Eagle to travel to the ship to find out what was wrong, but John had held off on the order since he had wanted to wait five hours, but now it was time for them to find out what was going on.

"Anything?" he asked the rest of the Main Mission crew.

"Nothing, Commander," Sandra replied, her voice just as tense.

John sighed.

"Wait, I'm getting something," Paul reported.

"Let's hear it."

"….._calling Alpha. Repeat, Professor Victor Bergman, calling Moonbase Alpha."_

"Professor Bergman, this is Paul, we're reading you," Paul said excitedly.

Victor sighed. "_Paul, thank god!"_

"Victor, what happened?" John quickly took control of the situation when he detected the sound of exhaustion in the scientist's voice.

"_That Cartha, John….He brought us here deliberately. He's already killed four of the team."_

"What?" John repeated horrified.

"_I'd better start at the beginning. It's a long story."_

"Yes, please, tell us," John said before he turned to Paul. "Get Alan up there, now. Make sure he takes medical personnel with him as well as extra security."

Victor had overheard what John had said but he said nothing about it as he began reciting what had happened. "_Give me a chance to think and get it out, John, Please… Alright, it started when we boarded the Cartha ship. He was extremely polite and helpful. He ferried us back to his ship, and he showed us around, although there was a section near the engineering decks which he claimed were contaminated by radiation. John, we were amazed and fascinated," _Koenig could hear the scientific interest in Victor's voice, although it was marred with exhaustion and grief. "_And then he showed us the engine. John, it was breaking down slightly, but we didn't know why at the time. The Cartha provided us with the specifications on the drive, so working on it was easy. _

"_The problem came when we found the bodies of his former crew. While the Cartha had been polite and helpful, he quickly showed he was a xenophobic as the Cartha we met before, only worse. He was rude to some of us, and he even frightened us, demanding we work faster. Well, I and Maurice, one of the security guards, went out to explore the ship while the others kept him occupied. We found the bodies of the crew. John," _Victor swallowed; clearly what he had seen had been the stuff of nightmares, "_they had been dissected, but there were signs he had killed them all with some kind of gun which used chemical bullets. He murdered them all, not because he was bored, but because he claimed they were in the way. They must have been like the Cartha I imagined after we heard their story of how they were treated in their galaxy, they just wished to explore space, not conquer it. I don't know for sure, there are no signs of any kind of pitched fight. He must have been insane…but either way, he murdered them all, and he began dissecting them for some reason. _

"_But the Cartha had already worked out we were down in the engineering decks, and he killed four of our party, although they managed to fight him off, he came after us. He attacked me and Maurice, injuring Maurice by stabbing him in the shoulder. I managed to shoot him four times to stun him, and I tied him up with a plastic flex before I had the others drag him back to the flight deck where we interrogated him. _

"_He has wanted to conquer the galaxy for some time; apparently, he and many others among their people wanted to forge a mighty empire using the Gateway technology. The other Cartha believed their ends did not justify the means, and they denounced them as mad."_

"I doubt that's the case right now, considering their attitudes," John commented grimly, remembering the Cartha's attitude.

"_You're right, John. Anyway, he carried out his plan to use the Gateway to drag ships here so then he would have hundreds of spaceships so then he could accelerate the technological revolution back home; he wouldn't say how he planned to convince the Cartha he hadn't killed the crews or passengers, or even his own crew. But he must have come up with something convincing."_

"What do you mean, he killed the crews and passengers?" John asked, worried, knowing the Cartha wouldn't have had any trouble doing the same with Alpha.

"_We found the remains, John, and we've also found two of our own people up here; he kidnapped them with the Gateway, I think. Andre Morell, and Paula Meadows. We also found a host of other materials in the lab, materials I think are geared for generating bioweapons."_

John shuddered at the thought of a bioweapon being used on everyone in Alpha. "Go on," he forced himself to say, hoping to get the story settled.

"_It looks like he quickly kidnaps people from those whom he kidnapped, and then experimented on them to create bioweapons before he sent it through the Gateway, but it has been breaking down from overuse recently. However, I think we can use it."_

"Victor, what happened to the Cartha?"

"_He's dead, John. He managed to get loose, and he attacked us. We had no choice but to kill him. As for the Gateway drive…-," _Victor was about to say, but John lost his patience.

"Oh, forget the drive, Victor," Koenig shouted, startling everyone in earshot. "It's responsible for the death of millions."

"_I know, John, believe me," _Victor said calmly, unfazed by the anger. "_However, we can still use the technology to escape from here, travel across space without the need to worry about our course. And the gravity here, helped by the drifting ships, is keeping us here for longer. We have plenty of time to study this ship, and the others here."_

"That sounds like grave robbing, to me, Victor."

"_I don't like it either, John. But think…don't you remember the Ultra Probe, how Tony told us about the spaceships there?"_

Koenig stiffened at the reminder of a disaster, only for everyone to be forced to eat some humble pie since Tony was proven right, although it had cost his life.

"_These ships can help us find a planet where we can colonise. Let's face it, John; we have the supplies on Alpha, but these ships could really help us get going with colonising a new world, and we would have the technology to really go out into space. John, at our current rate, we are only seeing one hostile planet after another. These ships can help us find a new world, a place to colonise." _

Everyone in Main Mission turned to their Commander, wondering what he was going to say. Meanwhile, Koenig was lost in thought as he pondered about what had been said. The reminder over how Tony Cellini had seen those ships, and he, John, had urged the Commissioner at the time to finance a return trip to salvage the ships, all to accelerate human advancement into space travel.

Koenig's ideas had been sound.

Humanity had been developing space technology slowly but surely, but those ships could have answered the questions many scientists asked, and believed if they didn't have an outside source of help, then it would take years if ever to get the answers for themselves. Questions on artificial gravity. The longevity of the ship and fuel systems. New propulsion methods.

"Alright," Koenig said, his mind turning back to that argument where Tony was hauled over the coals, but also the irony of how this Cartha would approve of the stance of his people at the moment since they had become xenophobic and suspicious of others. "Get back to Alpha. We'll need to form a plan on how we're going to do this."

"_Right, John."_


	5. Chapter 5 The Robots

I don't own Space 1999.

Merry Christmas.

* * *

The Drift.

"God, there are millions of ships here," Alan commented to Professor Bergman, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat. "We'll never study all of them."

"It doesn't matter," Victor shook his head although the sound of his voice made Alan turn his head towards Victor, slightly.

The professor's voice was casual, although Alan knew the older man well enough to know just saying those words in that manner was hurting the scientist since these ships offered a huge boon to Alpha's survival.

"We've been here for over three weeks," Victor went on, "mapping out the size of the flotsam and which ships are close enough for us to get in and study."

"Yeah, I know," Alan turned his head back in time to avoid the hull of another ship. "How long do you think we'll stay?"

"I don't know. I'm not in a hurry, though," Victor turned a mischievous schoolboy smile to Alan.

It was so infectious Alan was reminded of one of the many reasons he liked Victor so much. Victor wasn't one of those conventional, stuffy scientists he had come across during his long years as a pilot.

Moonbase Alpha had been one of the most important scientific installations humanity had ever created. Scientists of virtually every conceivable field had flocked to the base to study space, and while some of them had been nice enough in Alan's mind, some of them had been too rigid in their thinking and their training.

Victor Bergman was not one of them. He didn't see anything as trivial or irrelevant; he wanted to try everything out, and it gave him a sense of lateral thinking which had been of huge benefit to not just the Alphans, but his discoveries had answered and solved many of the riddles in space.

"How is it going with the Gateway technology?" Alan asked.

Victor's expression became more solemn. "It's going slowly, Alan. The good news is the Cartha ship computer is user-friendly, so our understanding of the technology is coming along in leaps and bounds, although we're still a long way from figuring out how some of it works."

"User-friendly? Those must have been different times for the Cartha," Alan commented.

"Yes," Victor agreed while he tried hard not to think of the recent mess where he had dealt with a Cartha who had murdered his own crew. "I think it was meant to be an interactive guide for Cartha who didn't understand anything of the principles of their own drive, so if something happened and there was a sole survivor, they would just need to ask the computer a few questions, and they could get home. The engineering and scientific staffs are currently studying every square inch of the drive, learning about the principles from the computer of the Cartha ship; yes, I know it will take time, but we'll get there in the end."

"What about all the ships here?"

"Well, don't forget, with these ships here, we can simply board a few, find some new technologies and see if any of them will help us in the long-term," Victor said.

Alan nodded. "Victor, this Gateway technology," he began, "I hear Commissioner Simmons is telling everyone we're going to get back to Earth. I know, hell we all know the general consensus is it's impossible, but what do you think?"

Victor sighed and rubbed his face, shaking his head irritably. "Yes, I've heard the same thing. The man is a fool."

"Hey, you won't get any arguments out of me for that," Alan chuckled but his expression sobered up. "But do you think it will happen eventually?"

Truthfully Alan doubted very much they would ever again see the Earth again.

Alpha's course through space was random enough as it was, but even if they could pass through the Gateway, they would have had no idea where they were going. It was a million - a trillion - to zero chance their initial activation of the drive would send them home.

"How long is a length of string, Alan?" Victor's expression was bleak. "Alan, Simmons doesn't want to realise this, but we truly don't have any idea where we are in the universe. The Gateway drive might allow us to travel faster than the speed of light, but it won't help our current generation find our way back to Earth."

The silence in the Eagle cockpit became tense but when Victor spoke again it was as if nothing had happened.

"Alan, before we left Earth we had only a few charts of the galaxies beyond the Milky Way, but not enough to provide us with an accurate enough map for Computer to use to get a fix, a point of reference."

Alan nodded. "I know that," he replied. "But do you think eventually when we've got a better idea of where we're going, we'll be able to send ships back to the old neighbourhood?"

"I see no reason why not. Too bad it won't be now. Anyway, how seriously are people taking Simmons, do you know?"

XXX

"Wow, look at that," Koenig gasped as he spotted a really large space ship which put him in mind of an enormous shoe combined with an iron. Indeed it had the wide, flat shape where a humans' foot would be, followed by a large, long, cylindrical handle-like protrusion from the top which ran the rest of the way towards the back of the hull. But what really dominated the view was an enormous 'bump' which was the closest description Koenig could come up with at the moment.

The bump was covered with circular vents surrounding a massive vent, but Koenig could see, suspended by vertical and horizontal supports and with a large locking bolt, were the blades of a huge prop which wouldn't have looked out of place on a ship, propelling it through the water.

Koenig studied the ship curiously, wondering why the designers and the builders of the ship would include a feature which was worthless for interstellar travel but he directed the Eagle's scanners to run a check on the hull. The Eagle computers had been 20/60 when it came to their scans of the ships in this place, much like they had been with the spacecraft of numerous other species they'd encountered since the mess which blasted them away from Sol and from Earth.

One of the biggest problems faced by Alpha and the Eagles was Earths' knowledge of what lay beyond the solar system was rather limited. The only ways of getting out into interstellar space with either with ships powered by chemical engines, or with the risky Queller drive, but beyond a few expeditions which didn't really last long, very little knowledge of what existed outside the solar system existed despite all the work done by Alpha.

Simmons himself represented a group of people more concerned with the cost than with truly pushing the boundaries of space exploration and developing the technology needed to get ships into orbit, or further, without relying on chemical engines.

Alpha hadn't been prepared for breakaway anymore than they were prepared to deal with the aliens out there, nor were they equipped to truly study any of the technologies they encountered, but since meeting their first aliens, Alpha didn't really have the facilities needed to study and understand how alien technology worked.

Koenig was therefore surprised when the scan came back, and he read the results.

From the look of it, the ship ahead was slightly more advanced than the Eagles themselves, perhaps a century or so ahead in development he estimated based on the findings he was reading right at that moment, although they might have been a little bit further ahead in terms of technological advancement.

But the materials of the hull, for instance, were closer to what the Eagles themselves were constructed from, only with a few more advanced variables. The kicker was the engine system.

The very first thing the Eagle picked up was the energy output of the ship. It was so high. It was virtually off the scale even if the ship itself wasn't moving at the moment.

But that wasn't all; the Eagle had detected what appeared to be an engine system that was advanced, but while there were some elements which the Eagle computer couldn't recognise - Koenig didn't even muster the effort to be annoyed since he had seen it before, many times in the past - but he did recognise something…

"Those holes in that section of the ship with the large bump," he began hesitantly, wishing he could come up with a better term to describe the protrusion from the hull's curve.

Phillips, his co-pilot glanced at him. "What about them?"

"The Eagle has detected hydrogen particles flowing into them. And the computer has also picked up a very powerful energy reading from that ship," Koenig looked in wonderment at the ship.

"What does it mean, sir?" Phillips asked.

An idea was nagging at the back of Koenig's mind.

"Commander?"

"Have you ever heard of…of a Bussard ramjet?" Koenig asked; he knew he was jumping the gun here, but he couldn't imagine what else this could be, nor could he work out why there was an enormous quantity of hydrogen particles around the vents, nor could he explain what else the huge energy reading was.

Yeah, it could have been one of the other energy sources they'd encountered a few times, but Koenig found it hard to believe.

"A Bussard ramjet? I thought that was a theory."

"A fusion rocket which captures hydrogen atoms from the surrounding interstellar space, using magnetic fields to trap them and induce fusion before forcing them out as rocket exhaust," Koenig shook his head as he recounted what he knew personally of the concept, although he knew it was an abbreviated version at any rate. "On paper it makes sense. And besides, we know fusion exists because of what goes on in a sun. Okay, so the technology might not have been on the practical drawing boards while the moon was in Earth's orbit," he said it carefully since many of the base personnel were still touchy about being reminded of the horrible memory of that fateful day; Lord knew Simmons enjoyed stoking the fires, although what he hoped to achieve in the long run was beyond Koenig's comprehension. "But the point is, the theory was always sound, but we lacked the technology to get it right."

Koenig directed his gaze towards the ship. One by one questions began swarming around in his head, questions he had asked himself over and over again as more and more Eagles were sent out to explore the flotsam floating around this solar system while the Moon was trapped here.

Who created this ship? Were they explorers who were only just making their way out into the great void away from the security of their sun and world? Were they peaceful, and just want to explore with a curiosity about the very universe they lived in? Had they faced the same hurdles humanity itself had faced when humans had first sent up their first space capsules or had they had it all worked out for them because they used a totally different method of getting ships into orbit, allowing them to conquer the problems with early spaceflight?

Since this ship was probably closer to the technology the humans on Moonbase Alpha were used to, John guessed the reason why he seemed more fixated on this particular ship was mostly that this ship was likely to be a more advanced version of the spacecraft John and the rest of the Alpha personnel were used to.

But the optimistic questions he had concerning the people who had worked on building this ship and crewing it - while many of the vessels they'd encountered so far and gotten into were nothing more than really large probes (that made sense; with the vast interstellar distances between stars, it would have been risky for many alien's who were highly intelligent to go out into the void of deep space on their own, relying on life-support technologies to keep them safe, hoping nothing could go wrong when there were so many things that could go wrong) - he was going to go with the hunch this ship had once had a crew - faded when he thought of how every since ship and colony vessel and probe found itself here.

Had they died in agony? Were they tortured?

Koenig disliked thinking about what fate had befallen virtually everyone here, but he couldn't help himself.

"Commander, we've still got a long way to go. Do you want me to attach a beacon to the ship, let the engineering details board it later?" Phillips, good, reliable Phillips, who must have noticed him staring at the bulk of the ship longer than he should have done, and asked the question to get through to him.

Koenig hoped it didn't happen too often, but ever since he had found himself here, he had been seeing firsthand, up close and personal, he had been admiring the different ships; there were so many of them, and it brought back the visions Tony Cellini had had about the ships he'd seen during the Ultra expedition, but there were so many here and although there was a lot of scepticism about what Tony had encountered, Koenig remained one of those people, one of those few, who believed the man since Tony had never seemed the type to lie, and even if he was desperate he had never once changed the story.

Never.

Why did he believe it? Because humanity had barely explored beyond the solar system. Who knew what existed?

In any case, while the story of a monster which drained the life force of its victims, as Tony's story claimed, was horrifying these ships were different since they were empty. They also contained wonders.

"Yeah," he said at last.

Phillips had just finished attaching the beacon for other teams to come across later when the Eagle received a call.

"Go ahead," Koenig said.

"_Commander, how close are you?" _Pilot Craig Torres asked over the communication frequency.

Koenig glanced at Phillips, just as a screen flared to life. "We can be where you are in ten minutes. Why?"

"_We've just found a ship with what looks like robots floating around it, Commander. I am keeping a distance from it, just to be on the safe side, but from what I can tell the robots are just occupied with working on the hull of the ship."_

Koenig glanced at Phillips before he nodded. "Show us," he ordered. "Are you also speaking to Professor Bergman?"

"_Yes, sir."_

"_I am, John. I'm heading for Torres' Eagle now."_

Koenig nodded, pleased Victor was involved before the screen changed as Torres' Eagle transmitted the view directly to Koenig and Bergmans' Eagles. The screen showed a typical image of this part of space; spaceships of various shapes and sizes, drifting in the gravitational orbit of various bodies although the ships were caught above the gravitational fields of planets, moons, and gas giants.

"My God," Koenig whispered in awe.

Robots on Earth were fairly basic in design and construction. Building and programming them was a very easy thing, and there were laboratories on Alpha dedicated to the research and the development of robots and other forms of similar technology. But the problem was robotics was a relatively new science on Earth by the time Alpha had left orbit, and the labs had more or less been abandoned since there were fewer resources for the scientists and engineers to work with as everything else went into ensuring the survival of the community.

What Koenig could see right now would be a dream come true for those same brains.

The alien ships' hull was cylindrical. There was a massive sphere attached to the back of the ship by scaffolding and thick looking bars. There were no windows, no evident sources of propulsion or weapons systems.

The robots themselves came in different shapes and sizes - one robot looked like a spider with thick legs. Another robot looked like a sphere with an elongated top, like a pear. Another looked like a space-going octopus with eight arms. But whatever they resembled, they all looked like they were working on repairing the ship's hull.

"We're heading for the ship now, Torres," Koenig said over the com-lock system. "Victor, how long until you get there?"

"_Only about fifteen minutes, John. We will get there before you, but I think we'll take our Eagle around the ship and see if we can determine more about what the robots are doing. At the same time, we might get a chance to learn more about the ship."_

"Alright, Victor. Stay in touch. Come on, Phillips," Koenig took the controls and directed the Eagle towards the robot ship.

XXX

As they headed for the robot ship, Koenig was jolted in his seat when the communication system chirped. "_Main Mission to Commander Koenig."_

Koenig answered immediately. "Paul, is everything okay?"

"_Commander - Commissioner Simmons wishes to speak with you," _Paul's displeasure could be heard over the channel, and Koenig sighed with annoyance himself.

"Did he say what he wants?" Koenig didn't have any qualms about speaking of the Commissioner in such a manner when the man himself was right there. After the trouble the man had caused recently, Koenig was in no mood to be polite.

"_He's gotten wind of the robot ship, sir. He says we need to take possession of it-," _there was a sound from the other end, like someone wrestling for something.

"Paul?" Koenig asked.

"_It's Simmons," _the man himself said, speaking as if he were God himself and the screen showed the Commissioner's face blown up as Simmons leaned in close in an unnecessary attempt to show his power off. "_Koenig, you must bring that ship back to Alpha."_

Koenig rolled his eyes. "Simmons, we're going to investigate the robot ship. If we can bring back any robotic technology, then we can."

"_That's not good enough, Commander!" _Simmons quickly tried hard to regain control of his annoyance and spoke again in a calmer manner. "_Koenig, this ship has many technologies we can use-."_

Koenig didn't even try to hide his incredulity. "Simmons, this whole solar system is full of spacecraft that we could spend the rest of our lives studying, and they all contain technologies which can help us in many ways. Just one ship could accelerate our development thirty times over. We shall see what we can do."

He shut off the communication line and he leaned back in his seat, hoping Simmons didn't try to contact him again. He wasn't in the mood for the politician nowadays, and since Simmons had been telling everyone gullible enough to listen they would soon get home as if they didn't have any navigational fix. Everyone with a brain in their heads would say it would be virtually impossible since they had no idea where in the cosmos the moon was.

And yet Commissioner Simmons was so desperate to return home, he was blinded by the reality.

"What is that guy's problem?" Koenig turned to Phillips.

"Simmons refuses to face reality. He doesn't like listening to the facts, and he won't accept the fact it might be impossible for the time being to return to Earth," Koenig replied, hoping Phillips was not one of those people hoping they would go home. "He also makes stupid decisions which cause more harm than he realises."

The communications line chirped five minutes later as they were getting closer and Victor's grave expression appeared on the screen. "Victor, what's wrong?"

"_John, did you tell Simmons he could use his authority in any way?"_

Koenig sat up straight. "No, what's happening?"

"_John, we were going close to the ship, but as soon as the robots detected us they began opening fire. They are firing beams of nuclear energy, and they've seriously damaged several of the Eagles although they haven't been destroyed. But every time we retaliate, the beam weapons increase in power."_

"But how? How did this happen?"

"_Simmons, for reasons not even approaching comprehension, told everyone out here - all Eagles - to come to the ship and to take it back to Alpha. But as soon as we went close - half a mile - they took notice of us, and they began firing on us."_

Koenig made a mental note to punch Simmons for this. "Victor, we're almost there," he said, relieved although he wasn't in any way happy about inheriting another major mess created by Simmons' lack of common sense.

When he took a look at the scene, he knew this was not going to be good.

The robot's ship had opened its gunport's - the ship's weapons were concealed underneath heavy plates, making Koenig believe the designers had locked them away simply because it wasn't logical for the weapons to be exposed - and was firing beams of red energy that seared through space. Koenig checked the energy levels of the beams, and he saw one beam had three times the energy level of a nuclear reactors' power output for five years.

The Eagles were firing back in their attempt to get to the robot ship. Koenig growled under his breath, furious Simmons had gone over his head and done this.

"Koenig to all Eagles," Koenig opened the channel to the other Eagles. "Withdraw. We're going to need a different plan on how we're going to do this."

Koenig was relieved when he saw the other Eagles stand down - he was uncertain if the commanders of those Eagles were just thankful they were getting their orders from him, and not some donkey of a politician, but he definitely had it in his head to find out.

"_John, you've done the right thing," _Victor said over the communication channel.


	6. Chapter 6 Dawn of Earth's space war

I am sorry it's taken so long to continue this collection, but I am back now. I hope you enjoy reading this collection. As usual, I do not own Space 1999, but I love having fun with it.

As usual, please feel free to leave feedback.

* * *

The Drift.

"_Station 2 controller, to Eagle 5…you are cleared for landing at Utopia Planitia city pad."_

Erin nodded. "Roger that, landing now."

As she flew to the pad, slowing her Eagle down before she cut power to the rocket motors, Erin took a moment to look out at the plain of Mars through the port shields which separated her breathable atmosphere from the unbreathable atmosphere of Mars's atmosphere. The planet was still barren, but since the terraformation experiments were still going on to make a suitable home for the majority of the human race despite the lack of sufficient resources, Erin knew it would take time before the planet became green.

Erin knew it would take decades before the human race had developed the means to properly terraform Mars and Venus, but with all of humanity's resources dedicated to repairing the damage caused when the moon was mysteriously blasted off into space, upsetting the gravitational influence, it was remarkable there were even humans here at all.

The Eagle shook as it made the touchdown on the landing pad, and Erin got out of her seat and stood up before she used her commlock to open the doors before she went to the airlock. After making sure the atmosphere of the boarding tube was equal with that of the Eagle, Erin opened the doors.

On the other side was her friend, Jenna Fewsham. The two hugged.

"Erin, it's great to see you," Jenna grinned.

"I know, Jenna. It's good to be back, especially out of that damn Eagle. I swear, I'm just relieved they've made spacecraft with solar sails now, but the travel time still needs work," Erin complained making Jenna look at her sympathetically.

"It's been going on for twenty-one years, Erin," Jenna said as they went off. "By the way, is there any news?"

Erin was silent as she thought about the news she had. Jenna was a scientist as well as a doctor, and one of her uncles had been one of those who had been on Moonbase Alpha before the moon was blasted out into space. The incident had inspired the young Jenna, who had managed to survive the resultant cataclysm that had afflicted Earth, to train up and head into space. Erin and Jenna had both met while they had been at the Academy which had seen a greater rise in importance as the human race came to accept that Commissioner Simmonds' statements about humanity's future existed in space were correct since there was no future on the husk that was once Earth.

It was ironic, really; for years Simmonds had argued for projects like the Metaprobe and other exploratory missions while U.N representatives and members of the Council had claimed the cost was incredibly high, but now humanity was hanging on by threads, everyone was saying they needed to go into space. Erin and Jenna were just two people in a growing number of people who were taking their first steps to leave Earth because they simply had nothing to lose since Earth had lost so much as a result of the Devastation. But while Erin had moved into the piloting side of the Space Commission, Jenna had gone into science and medicine. Both of them were veterans of the outer and inner exploration missions which had been demanded in order to find new resources and potential habitat sites for human living before their assignments had changed. Jenna's position put her directly on the command staff of one of the Martian colonies.

A smile spread over Erin's face as the news settled in her mind. "You mean _Interstellar One?" _she asked.

"Yeah, don't keep me waiting!" Jenna grouched.

Erin giggled. "It's going ahead," she whispered, placing a finger to her lips and making a shh sound. "I've got to tell Controller Bryant and the rest of the Martian colonies. And, I've got to tell them something else."

"It's going forward?" Jenna whispered. "And what else?"

"Yeah, but I'll tell you the rest in Main Mission," Erin replied, a brief look of unease on her face before she resumed her walk towards Main Mission. They walked past a number of robots on the way to Main Mission before Jenna spoke again.

"When will the launch take place?"

"A while from now. For the time being, they are just assembling the right group to board the ship, and then go out into space. There's also talk of preparing two more _Interstellar_ ships."

"Two?"

"Yeah, but nothing has been substantiated."

Jenna's voice was quiet as she realised something. "With the Queller drive?"

Erin's voice was just as quiet. "I'm afraid so."

The Queller drive was seen as a necessary evil nowadays, but since it was the only way for long-range interstellar flight unless one of the numerous laboratories and workshops discovered a more advanced, less dangerous and more versatile form of propulsion, the Queller drive was all they had.

Named after its inventor, Ernst Queller, the drive spewed out fast neutrons that collided with one another, generating thrust. As a drive, it worked wonders for it allowed space travel although it was just below light speed.

Unfortunately, the dangers of the drive were clear. You could use it to send probes out deeper into space, but stand in front of a Queller drive, and you were dead. You could also hide in shelter miles underground, and it wouldn't make a difference. Many people had died because of the drive, and as a result of the outcry of its use it had been banned. However, in these times things were desperate, and desperate times called for increasingly desperate measures.

Both Jenna and Erin understood, of course, the need to use the Queller drive. Indeed, nowadays probes sent out powered initially by rocket fuel and solar sails were directed under computer control to the edge of the solar system, and the Queller drives on them would send them out into space. Fusion power derived from the use of Helium 3 offered a superior form of space propulsion, but since there were no major habitats or mining outposts near Jupiter, they had no way of getting the gas while experiments showed the promise behind it.

Thanks to the Queller drive driven probes, they had found and photographed several habitable planets light-years away. Thanks to the Queller drive, the probes had arrived near Alpha and Proxima Centauri. There were plans to colonise the planets while sending out another towards the Meta system which had shown signs of being inhabited around the time the moon was lost, while it was hoped another expedition would travel to Ultra that had been discovered long before but had never been explored by humans.

Jenna shook her head irritably. "What _is taking them so long? _Why can't they develop a faster than light drive that is many times better than the Queller drive?"

Erin sighed. She had heard all of this before. "Experiments are taking place all the time," she reminded her friend, knowing why Jenna was unhappy by the prospect of being inside a cryogenic unit while their ship was being propelled by a bastardised nuclear reactor.

"Not soon enough," Jenna shook her head, but then she sighed. "Come on, let's get to Main Mission."

XXX

_Just do it, it's for the Greater Good of the human race I do this; yes, many people will be killed in the ensuing fighting, but it will be worthwhile in the long term, _the man thought to himself while he sat inside a darkened room somewhere in the solar system, sitting in front of a bank of consoles.

Finally, he touched a control, and a clock started to tick.

The man leaned back in his seat and he sighed. "It's for the Greater Good," he whispered to himself before he slipped something from underneath his tunic, a Christian cross. "Lord, forgive me," he kissed the cross.

XXX

In the meeting room of Main Mission, Erin looked around the large circular table while Commander Daniels presided over the meeting. Daniels was a tall man with greying brown hair that was immaculately styled. Daniels, like the majority of Main Mission control, was an experienced veteran in space exploration, and it showed in his expression that was weighed out by his calm manner.

"As you all know, Erin has returned from Earth with important news. Erin," he said, waving a hand.

Erin leaned forward, scanning each person sitting at the table. "I will just say it; in another ten years or so, the first fleet of colony ships will be leaving our solar system and colonise worlds closest to Earth."

Everyone around the table looked at each other in surprise by the news.

"That's a bit of a rush, isn't it?" someone asked seriously.

"Yeah, we've barely managed to colonise our own system; what hope do we have with another?"

"It's not as simple as rushing forward with building an ambitious colony," Erin shook her head. "For the last two decades, resources on Earth have been stretched thin. The colonisation of Mars following the loss of the moon took over fifteen years to put into effect while the city-domes on Earth were under construction. You all know the Council wanted to relieve the strain on the population by sending them out into space to Mars and even to the Martian moons to construct colonies and ensure human survival in space in case anything happened to what was left of Earth's civilisation.

"All that has been done; already the population of the Martian moons and of Mars itself are on the rise, now that the problems of the radiation of the surface and the hazards here have been solved. But now the Council have come up with something more ambitious. The Council are currently in the last stages of planning the construction of a fleet of O'Neil cylinders to offload the strain on what's left of Earth's resources," she began, "already designers and engineering teams are developing the space colonies, but at the same time they are planning on constructing a small fleet of Queller drive interstellar vessels to colonise worlds outside our solar system."

"So, why?"

"Why what?"

"Why the rush? Our population is rising all the time, and plans to terraform Venus are only forty years away-."

Erin shook her head. "Those plans have been cancelled."

"What?"

Erin nodded this time, her expression solemn. "Remember the mining accident three years ago where an asteroid was destroyed in the disaster, along with not one, but three of our asteroid colonies? There were over eighty thousand of us lost in the disaster. During that time there were plans galore to terraform Mars and Venus. The disaster sent shockwaves through the solar system."

Everyone at the table was silent as they remembered the disaster, especially as it was close to home. No-one was entirely sure what had caused the disaster, but the favourite explanation was over-mining which had been fairly common on various asteroids at the time, had gone too far, bypassing the insufficient safety precautions in place to ensure such a disaster never took place.

Unfortunately it did.

Eighty thousand people had died, and while the mess had made the Council realise they couldn't just send people off to construct space laboratories or colonies in the asteroid belt without taking proper inspection of the mining stations, it had only just served to remind everyone of the dangers of working in space.

But to cancel the terraformation projects…

The projects to terraform Mars and Venus had been in the works for decades, long before the moon was blasted out into space. But now they were critically important. Humanity just didn't have the room or the resources to have large populations which was desperately needed following the mess on 13th September 1999 when the moon was blasted out of orbit.

Not only had millions of people perished, but a large chunk of Earth's natural flora and fauna had died out as well, and what was left was clinging on to life by threads.

While they had constructed colonies in space, it would be decades, maybe even centuries before it was to the original height and even higher than before. But for that to happen they needed space, and while the city domes scattered on Earth's mutilated surface and the ones on Mars and the asteroids were large, they needed to be larger in order to accommodate the growth of crops. And lots of them.

It was hoped the terraformation of Mars and Venus would relieve the strain and allow humanity to breathe on a planet's surface without needing breathing apparatus.

The plans were going ahead, but to hear they were cancelled was a shock.

"Cancelled? Why?"

"All resources are being funnelled into the construction of colony ships and the O'Neil cylinders," Erin replied solemnly, "they're to be given top priority. When the population around the solar system has reached a certain level, that's when the real work will commence. The Council have come up with a new plan."

"What new plan?" Jenna asked, remembering the grim expression her friend had worn earlier.

Erin sighed. "The news has been given to me to handed to you in person because Mars will have a huge part to play in the operation, but essentially the Space Commission has decided to stop mass colonisation of the solar system, and is instead looking further outward. There's _Interstellar One, _the first of an interstellar fleet of colonisation ships, already under construction. In another few years it will be joined by two, maybe four more ships, and they will be sent out into space."

"To colonise the nearest worlds to Earth," another female member of the command council Erin didn't know whispered in awe.

"To set up colonies on planets, keeping in contact with Earth," Erin corrected. "Once they're established out there, the plan is to slowly evacuate the solar system, and travel to new worlds and make a new life there."

"Evacuate?"

"You mean we're abandoning the solar system? Abandoning Earth?" someone whispered in shock.

"I guess it makes sense," Daniel's commented, although his expression showed he was surprised by the news like everyone else. "With everything happening and the slow building of the colonies, the different approaches taking place, it makes sense we'd be leaving since there's little on Earth."

"Earth still has water, and there's still life on the surface, so scientists are still hopeful there's a chance it can be saved," Erin observed. "But with solar flares and other events happening out in the solar system, the Council are worried any attempt to terraform Earth will just fail, so they plan on doing the barest minimum to try, but there are hopes that life will find a way to make the planet live again. In the meantime, we need new worlds. We can't exist underneath atmospheric domes for the rest of eternity."

"Is that why they've come up with the plan, to find somewhere else to live?"

"Pretty much."

Daniel's commlock chirped and the commander took it out of his belt. "Yes?"

"_Commander, fleets of robot ships are swarming through the system! They're attacking colonies, Eagles, freighters, everything! They've also attacked Earth!" _

XXX

The mood in Main Mission was hectic, everyone was stunned by the sudden turn of events that many of them didn't know how to react. Commander Daniels had noticed the mood, and he had no intention of letting anyone dwell on it. He got them working trying to identify what was happening.

On the screens of Main Mission, the view was grim as the images were bounced off of the satellite network scattered through the solar system.

The robot ships - simple and functional in shape, resembling mini Eagles - were swarming through the system. They were firing laser beams and missiles at the space stations, habitats, laboratory complexes and colonies.

The manned Eagles had now gotten over their surprise and were putting up a fight, but they were outmatched and outnumbered. The robot ships didn't have any problems fighting them off. It was a massacre of epic proportions.

"I have thirty Eagles prepared, Commander," the Eagle commander reported.

"Only launch fifteen of them. We don't want to throw our resources away just yet, and keep them as close to the city-domes as possible," Daniels' ordered.

The Eagle commander opened his mouth to protest, but he quickly saw sense and he nodded while he carried out the order.

Erin was standing off to the side, watching over the proceedings with a heavy heart and a lot of unease. She wasn't a member of the command crew of the Martian complexes, so she had no official duties here.

What the hell was going on? Why had the robot ships suddenly turned on them? The robots had been constructed years ago to help them colonise the system, and their ships were armed to help them blast meteors and stray asteroids out of their path, but they had millions of separate programs installed to ensure they did not malfunction like this.

At least Erin was sure they were malfunctioning, she couldn't really explain what was happening.

"Commander," the communications operator said, "we're getting a broad-range transmission."

"From Earth?"

"No, sir. I can't find its point of origin, its just been broadcasted throughout the solar system."

Daniel's frowned. "Play it."

The Main Mission screens changed, showing the aged face of a bald man who looked quite old, but his eyes showed quicksilver intelligence.

Erin gasped, and she was one of many. "Dr Marcus," she whispered.

Marcus was the cyberneticist who constructed the robots after the moon was torn out of orbit in order to help what was left of the human race develop, and to seed the solar system. He did it gladly, but over time according to rumours, he became tired of humanity's inability to grow despite the fact everyone was trying their best to make do with their minimal resources. In the end, he had disappeared. No-one had seen him since until today.

So what was happening now?

Somehow Erin knew this man was responsible for what had just happened, but she didn't understand what the point was.

"_Hello, everyone from the Earth," _the scientist began in a sage but grave tone as if the subject he was about to speak of was hard for him to even describe, "_You have all witnessed the attacks from the robots. Many of the colonies have been destroyed, or there are survivors who have been sealed away inside other parts of the colonies, laboratories, or space stations. My robots have attacked even Earth. You are probably wondering what has happened, and who is behind this. I will save you the trouble. You are looking at the man responsible for the attack. _

"_For a long time I watched as the human race was forced to leave what was left of Earth following the disaster which blew the moon out of Earth's orbit, devastating our mother world. I was delighted in spite of the circumstances. I believed Commissioner Simmonds when he said repeatedly our people's future lay in space, not living on an increasingly resource-poor world because our people were stupid and short-sighted. Many called me a crank for my own ideas, but when I built robots to help us, I became a celebrity and I hated it. I hated the hypocritical attitudes, and I hated the fact even when we were in space, we weren't even bothering to truly evolve. _

"_That is when I read a book describing human evolution, and I found that competition such as war helps evolution and development. And that is why I have started all this. I want the human race to evolve, to become better. You will need it."_

Marcus' face became graver. "_Now, the robots will be attacking you in waves, and they will be increasingly more powerful than the generations before. And I mean more powerful. For instance, one generation may use high-powered lasers, another might use fusion missiles or bioweapons. Yes, that's right…bioweapons. You will grow, even if I have to have you dragged towards the doors that will open you up into space. Oh, and before I forget, I was also a geneticist. For the last few months, my robots have installed a specific type of virus to be delivered on every colony and ship. The virus is designed to make humanity more intelligent. Just a nice little prod. One day you will thank me when humanity is established in deep space, where we will have become stronger than ever. What are a few million lives compared to that? Good luck!"_

Daniels yelled. "Get to the air-recycling plants at once, check them over!"

But while everyone raced out to check the damage since they knew they couldn't dismiss the possibility of the virus' existence, Erin was left wondering whether Marcus' final words were his grand vision or just some possible future he had an idea of.

One thing was for sure, the human race was at war with their robotic helpers.

God help them all.


	7. Chapter 7 The Tunnels

**I'm so sorry it's taken so long to update, but I'm hoping to make more frequent updates. As always I don't own Space 1999 and I am looking forwards to the next Big Finish audio collection. For now... please let me know what you think.**

**Enjoy. **

* * *

The Drift.

The Dragon fighter shook under the blast. Garibaldi grimaced as he grasped onto the pilot's yokes while he used his legs to jam himself tight in the small space in front of the pilot's seat to keep himself steady while he studied the radar screen in front of him.

The robot fighters were pulling back after that last hit. They were following their usual pattern, as dictated by their onboard battle computers. A squadron of six ships, two of which would open fire and do their level best to cause as much damage as possible while they fired their forward cannons of missiles and space torpedoes and plasmablasts in three volleys before they pulled back, switching to scanning mode to update their battle computers for the next wave.

Once they had pulled back, the next two ships would open fire, and on and on it went.

Garibaldi had been in skirmishes like this many times before, and he hated it whenever the ship he was on happened to be retreating already. The Dragon fighters, unlike the Eagles, were designed for space combat, and as a result, their long bodies boasted many weapon blisters, but he knew the robots could open fire, and damage one of the reactor modules. If that happened, it would likely destroy the Dragon.

"Damage report?" He barked, briefly waving his hand as the stench of burnt-out circuitry and melted plastic wrinkled his nose, all the while hoping his crew were alive.

Behind him, his crew were only just holding it together.

Bashir, the chief weapons officer even though Garibaldi had put him into that role when the last crewman to hold onto it was killed, spoke quickly and nervously. "The dummies are increasing their firepower. Dorsal and ventral armour at 60%."

Garibaldi clenched his jaw, hoping the robots, or dummies, as Bashir referred to them as didn't increase their firepower anymore. To his side, the chief engineer was working frantically at her station. Lexi Dawson was, like Garibaldi, a veteran of battles like this. The 30-something brunette was good at her job, and she had a devious and wickedly sharp mind when it came to science and engineering. But she was even sharper when it came to killing robots.

"Jack, those last hits ruptured the fuel feed lines. I'm trying to reroute them…FUCK IT!" Lexi shrieked in anger and frustration because as she had been speaking, the robots had fired again. They had just scored a direct hit. "Great, now we've lost our speed by two levels. I can't pump more energy into the engines."

Garibaldi shook his head in frustration. "They've gotten better. Is there anything you can do?"

"Maybe, but not right now."

"Shit. Can you be creative?"

The look Lexi shot him could have reduced Mercery to molten ash. "How the hell am I supposed to be creative when I'm stuck in here? In any case, the power couplings and the magnetic coils are overheated enough as it is, and we haven't had the time to properly repair them since the last firefight."

"Hey, don't blame me for the design of these fighters," Garibaldi was jerking them from side to side, his eyes fixed on the forward view of the reinforced viewing ports and the radar screen so he could keep watch over the scanners. "Damn it, I can't keep ahead of them… Bashir, where the hell are those weapons?'

"Hey, I'm trying my best!" Bashir snapped as his fingers stabbed repeatedly at his console. "The dummies are making it hard for me to lock onto them; each time I try, they just fire harder."

Garibaldi knew the weapons officer wasn't to blame for this. The robots had been getting increasingly aggressive as of late following the attacks to the Saturn refineries where they received a large chunk of their energy supply, so their battle computers had been adjusted accordingly and reprogrammed with the next logical step; to batter every single human ship until they were splinters of metal, glass and plastic.

_It wasn't even much of an attack, _Garibaldi grimaced to himself as he recalled the battle, which had lasted at least three long years when the Earth authorities stationed on Mars had discovered where the robots main fuel production facility was although their attacks on the Jupiter refineries where humans had been steadily removing helium 3 from the gas giant had taken place much earlier, forcing a massive withdrawal which had caused a tremendous blow to human industry and forced them to turn to nuclear fission once more. The robots hadn't had that problem; they had taken advantage of the devastating attack which had allowed them to not only fuel their forces but had allowed their industry to flourish in their part of the solar system.

Once the information had been verified, a large expeditionary force had been despatched to Saturn to either destroy or to take over the refineries. The robots had luckily been taken by surprise, but they'd recovered quickly and the expeditionary force had then needed to fight for three long years. Garibaldi had been a veteran of those battles and skirmishes, darting around the moons of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn as he and his fellow soldiers had tried valiantly to destroy the robots, and he had witnessed many battles; the covert plan to take out the spy satellite in the shadow of Phobos, the submarine campaigns of Enceladus and Europa where he and his team had needed to adapt to the oceanic environments of those two moons, the pirate raid on the robot production facility in the asteroid field, to name a few.

He had been fighting the robots and their battle computers so many times for the last twelve years and he had become a recognised veteran from dozens of battles and campaigns, but during the Saturn campaign, Garibaldi had seen for himself the tales of how the robots were so quickly adapting, no matter what shape their armies were in, or if their fleets of weapon-ships, fighters and bombers were in shambles, they always adapted. Their battle computers were always being moved to new locations within the solar system, and even when the Earth forces were carefully shattering their fleets, either with good leadership or with their latest weapons and tactics, or more often than not, luck, the robots always came back for more.

But then that was the sort of thing they were designed for.

It was their way.

The robots were not trying to destroy humanity. They were trying to strengthen it.

They were programmed to attack humans when their creators were either at full strength or when they could launch an attack while leaving many survivors to keep the war going.

Ever since the war had begun and it was known what their creator was trying to accomplish, the first largest engagements had resulted in terrible losses for both sides, but while it had taken humanity time to rebuild and regroup, the robots had adapted quickly. Instead of launching a devastating attack which would have seen the deaths of the few survivors of the previous holocaust where dozens of space colonies were partially destroyed, the robots had hung back, and it had mystified many until they had gotten hold of a robot commander and cracked open its computer to learn the secrets of the machines they had gotten the full story.

The robots were designed to fight in battles against humans who were supposedly strong in order to make them stronger; if they had attacked those partially destroyed habitats and colonies, it would mean there were fewer survivors, so then their mad creator's plans to strengthen humanity and make it stronger would not be met.

And since the day that knowledge had worked its way through the human colonies since there were now so few people living on the devastating wreck which was Earth, a deeper understanding into the motives of the machines had been discovered. And from there, dozens of plans had been put into place to construct a series of orbital habitats, but load them with nuclear bombs. When the machines began their attack, the nukes would detonate and completely destroy the robot fleet, or disable it for the fighters to come in and put them out of action.

But the war was monotonous - engage, retreat, rebuild. It never seemed to end, and there were moments during his career where Garibaldi honestly believed the war would never end.

Unfortunately, this was one of those moments.

"It's what they always do," Garibaldi thought to himself several ideas they could use to evade the machines, "is there anything ahead of us?"

"Nothing, just open space."

"Shit!" Garibaldi snarled, wondering if the battle computer in command and control of this squadron of robot fighters had deliberately pushed them here so then they couldn't escape. In the past, it would be considered laughable to think that, but Garibaldi and the vets of this war had learnt both the easy way and the hard way not to discount the possibility; the battle computers were programmed to outthink their opponents while using the classic strategies from military masterminds like Julius Caesar, Napoleon…. And programming into it all an algorithm which made it sacrifice large numbers of its own robots and massacre humans, all to ensure the strongest survived to fight another day.

And boy, were they fucking clever?

But there was nothing they could do about it. They would have to try and keep ahead of the robot ships and hope eventually their fuel cells demanded they retreat while they still had the time. Garibaldi and the others had discovered the robots and their ships of this latest generation were powered by hydrogen fuel cells which required frequent charging, and they got the power from special stations in their territory. It made sense; the robots had been safeguarding their energy resources since the refineries were destroyed and they'd had to switch a lot of their technology over to hydrogen fuel cell power. But the cells were fairly primitive and they used up more power than they should have done, but it provided a massive weakness which the pilots and troops were keen to exploit all the time. Garibaldi and the rest of his crew weren't that concerned with their own energy supply; their power came from a number of nuclear power generators which used fission, but they were still volatile, and if they were hit or damaged….

Garibaldi pushed that aside, and now he was mentally praying the robots were vulnerable now. With that in mind, Garibaldi checked his screens. Now, the robots had been fighting for a long time, so by now, their power systems must be dropping…

"They're still gaining," Lexi grimly reported as she watched her scopes.

Garibaldi checked how close they were and he grimaced when he saw they were too close for one of his ideas to work properly. Even worse, his hope they were running out of energy was looking like it wasn't going to work at all. They were coming after them, and the power readings detected by the scopes pointed out they were increasing speed. "Fuck, there's no justice!" He snapped.

"What do you mean?" Bashir asked as he reloaded the aft cannons.

Garibaldi waited for him to fire before he replied. "I was hoping the robots' power cells might be losing power by now, but clearly not."

"I don't think it would have made any difference." Heads turned slightly when they heard Megumi speak from the door. Megumi was the engineering officer on the ship, and she had just been in the back in the engine section. "The robots might lose their power, but they can make up for it by joining up and sharing what they've got left."

"Damn."

"What's it like back there, Megumi?" Lexi asked.

"Bad. I've done my best with the power conduits, but we can't keep this up for much longer; the engines are beginning to overheat."

"Can we use the ion drive?"

"Just about holding up, but I don't want to over push it."

"But can we push it?" Garibaldi pushed.

Megumi sighed. "Just as long as we don't push it too far-."

"Hold it a moment; I'm picking up some unusual readings. Weird neutrino build-up directly ahead," Lexi was concentrating on her screens, and she was double-checking her findings. Garibaldi checked his own navigational sensors… and then he picked up what Lexi had found. Earth's space agency had developed new technologies in the years since the moon was ripped out of Earth's orbit and the surviving human race was split up and sent into space while others endured a meagre existence on what was left of Earth…. And then the war against the robots and the computers had only accelerated the growth of human technology even more.

The sensors which the Dragons utilised were infinitely superior to those found on the old Eagle flyers, and given how the machines had not only smashed the whole concept of invisibility and stealth before pulverising what was left with their own technology, technologies humans had been trying to reverse engineer for years with captured robot ships, their technology was nothing to scoff at.

"Any idea what's causing it?" Garibaldi lifted his gaze to look out of the viewing ports to see if there wasn't some kind of phenomena out there directly ahead. But there was nothing. All he could see was black, seemingly empty space.

"No. And before you ask, I can't narrow down the source; it's all around us."

Bashir's console beeped. "Lieutenant, we don't need to worry about the robots anymore."

"What, why not?"

"Because they're reversing course."

Garibaldi instantly checked his navigational readings. Bashir was right; the robots which had been in hot and close pursuit of their single ship were backing off and they were heading back to their own home territory.

"Why would they change course?" Robinson, an intelligence officer whose primary task was to keep quiet and just observe, asked.

Garibaldi hated himself for it, but he jumped when he heard Robinson's voice. The young man had kept very quiet for the last few days whenever they'd been on duty, although he had asked them a few questions on their own opinions about the robots latest moves so he could write it in his reports. Ever since the war had begun, intelligence on the machines had been in short supply, so they had installed intelligence operatives on their ships who would not be a part of the main crew of the fighter ships or cruisers, but they would be trained to help out so then if something went wrong, the crew could depend on them. When they returned to their home base, the intelligence operatives would write up reports, and send them off to be analysed by the right people, and if a major offensive was to be planned they'd be the ones who handed it to the Earth forces in the first place.

It was thanks to people like Robinson the people of Earth had managed to survive this long. The idea came from a set of novels by an author named Bernard Cornwell, whose work on a fictional soldier from the Napoleonic Wars also included hints of spymasters who sent in many spies. Someone in the agency had come up with the same idea, and they had decided to train up an elite group of observers recruited from several members of the forces.

Garibaldi hadn't known Robinson for long, but he knew of the man's reputation; he was quiet, diligent, methodical and observant, well he needed to be since it was his job.

"They must have detected the same thing we did. Their computers must have concluded we must be luring them into a trap; don't forget we have copied some of their stealth technology, and a lot of it leaks neutrinos," Megumi offered.

Garibaldi turned to Robinson. "Are there any of our ships here?"

Robison shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think so, but bear in mind I have been out of circulation, and I don't know all the black projects we've got."

Garibaldi nodded, inwardly annoyed at himself for forgetting that, but at the same time, he wondered if Robinson was telling the truth. He seemed sincere, but he had learnt the hard way these intel people were sometimes those who believed the ends justified the means; while he understood that need, it was sometimes…cold blooded.

"Garibaldi, there's no radiation building up in the cabin, yet we're getting it outside. How's that possible-?"

Suddenly the ship seemed to jump forwards, interrupting Lexi's report and the whole of their forward view changed showing off instead of the black vista of deep space twinkling with the light of distant stars millions of light-years away, to a long tunnel which seemed to be made out of gaseous material that glowed orange, red, purple, green, yellow and blue.

"What the hell-?" Bashir gasped.

"Questions later," Garibaldi checked his navigational computers. "Shut down the tactical systems, and transfer all your power to the forward navigational scanners."

"Garibaldi-."

"We're not being followed by the robots. In any case, I want to know where this tunnel leads."

"Right." Bashir's voice was grudging.

Still, he did as he was told, and Garibaldi was pleased when his navigational scanners received a boost; the tunnel they were in was quite large, but it was like they were small electrons trapped in a maze of looping electrical wires all bundled together like spaghetti in a bowl, making it bloody hard for him to get an accurate fix of where they were.

He slowed the engines down, just as they were about to overshoot a junction where there were six other paths, three of them including the one their own ship had just emerged from, leading off into different directions.

"Lexi, drop a navigational beacon here; I want us to find our way back easily."

"I'll do better than that; I'll program the beacon to transmit the number 1, so we know which one it is."

Garibaldi grinned. "Good one, Lexi. Right…. We're going into that tunnel," he pointed.

"Why that one?"

"No particular reason."

"I'll drop a beacon in that mouth as well," Lexi offered, "just in case."

Garibaldi didn't know how many navigational beacons they had on board, but he knew there were a few. In any case, Lexi had the common sense to let them know if and when they were going to run out. "Okay, but if we begin to run out," he voiced his thoughts, "let us know."

"I will."

The new tunnel was a lot like the other one, and this one seemed to go on for much further than the last one. There were surprisingly fewer tunnels branching off, just one long one. When they reached the end of the corridor, there was a faint reflecting effect like they were before a giant mirror.

"What on Earth's that?" Bashir asked.

Lexi shook her head. "I don't know," she whispered. "All this is beyond me."

Garibaldi bit his lip in thought. "Lexi, drop another beacon marker right here. I'm firing up the engines really slowly…."

"Is that a good idea?" Robinson asked.

"I don't think we've got much choice," Garibaldi increased power to the engines, and the nosecone of the Dragon slipped into the mirrorlike reflection….

XXX

….And they emerged back into normal space, but as soon as they looked out at the vista before them, they knew there was something different here.

"Wow!" Garibaldi gasped. Lexi and a few others mirrored his gasp of amazement. And who could blame them?

They were looking at a completely different solar system. In front of them were three stars, all evenly spaced away from one another in a distance, but they were looking at two planets, twin worlds in close proximity to one another, both of them reminding the crew of Earth, or rather the classic Earth their world had once been instead of the devastated and churned up ruin it had become when the moon had been ripped away and the gravitational quake had devastated everything.

Garibaldi reversed engines.

Lexi was snapped out of her spell. "Hey, what are you doing?" She asked as they returned to the tunnel.

"Firing an unmanned probe," Garibaldi got to work on the probe computer, and he typed in a specific set of commands. "I want to know if we can get through there, and yet still come back."

"But we've already proven that!"

"No," Megumi whispered, her voice quiet enough to be heard. "We had only pushed our ship's bow out of the tunnel, so we were still inside it. We don't know what would happen if we leave the tunnel, and we don't know if its a one-way trip or not."

"So, that means….," Robinson's voice was scared.

"We might never return home," Megumi finished, her voice blank although the fear in her eyes made it clear to all of them this was terrifying for her as well.

Garibaldi fired the probe. They saw it leave the Dragon, a small cylindrical sphere powered by an ion drive thruster. Without hesitation, the probe cleared the mirrorlike screen in front of them, and then it was gone.

"When did you program it to return?" Bashir asked curiously.

"I set it for ten minutes, more than enough time for it to get clear and take a few photos and then come back. And if it can't….," Garibaldi let the rest of his sentence hang.

The waiting seemed to drag on forever. And then, just as the crew were beginning to get restless, the mirrorlike screen in front of their bow seemed to ripple with light, and the probe returned, to the delight of the crew.

"That's enough," Garibaldi's chiding was false because he was grinning in relief. "We can go through."

Pushing the engines forwards again, the Dragon travelled through the opening and back out into normal space. As they travelled slowly to the planets in front of them, Garibaldi had his crew study every square inch of the system ahead of them.

"I've got a match on this system, guys," Lexi's voice was shocked. "It's… well, this solar system was discovered eight months before the war against the machines started, but aside from some interest here and there in the usual circles, not a lot about this system is known, except its 500 light-years away from Earth."

"500 light-years?"

"Yeah. We're a long way from home," Lexi's voice was filled with awe. "I wonder if we passed through a traversable wormhole."

"Or a collection of wormholes," Megumi added, her eyes misted over as she tried to imagine the scope of their discovery. "Don't forget all those other passages, tunnels leading off to God knows where."

"But we were only in the tunnel, or wormholes for a few minutes," Robinson pointed out, "I thought wormholes were meant to be instantaneous-."

"That's only one possibility; we don't know for sure if that's how some forms of wormholes work, they're still a theory," Lexi said, glancing over at Garibaldi. "But this is new. I've never heard of a theory where wormholes are looped so near to a solar system before, perhaps into them."

"That's something we can think about later," Garibaldi decided, his mind going over the options available. "Right now… do you want to visit an alien world?"

Lexi brightened. As a scientist, she was fascinated by everything new in space, and even though her duties were moderately interesting, there was a mundane aspect about them which was annoying. It didn't help she was spending all her free time working on ways to fight the machines, which was a never-ending fight since they evolved like a handful of virulent diseases.

"Do I?" She grinned at the rhetorical question before her expression became filled with worry. "I'll just adjust the sensors to study the atmosphere to see if it can support us."

* * *

**Until the next time, readers. **


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